I gave up my job to raise our children – I lost my identity and it broke our marriage

Divorce, once rare and stigmatised, has become mainstream – 42 per cent of marriages now end this way, meaning nearly half of us who get married can expect to experience it in our lifetime. Just as every marriage is different, so is every divorce. In this column, divorcees reflect on their life-changing experience. Helped by the benefit of hindsight, they share advice and reflections. Farhana Hussain, 49, from Kent, put her family’s needs above her own for 15 years, until one morning, she simply couldn’t do it anymore. Interview by Lauren Crosby Medlicott. After being married to my husband for 15 years, I woke up one morning and thought to myself: “This can’t be it. This can’t be what my life is.” We married in 2004, when I was 26, after dating for three years. Although Matt* wasn’t my type and most certainly wasn’t the person my conservative Muslim Bengali family thought I’d marry (they would have preferred I marry someone with my cultural background – Matt is Caucasian and of Christian heritage), Matt’s humour had been so attractive to me early on, and we got on really well. My family put heavy pressure on me to marry – it was often suffocating – and marrying Matt was a way to satisfy their desire for my marriage but also fulfil my own need to be rebellious. Shorts From the start of the relationship, I took it on myself to keep everyone happy, playing mediator between Matt and my family. I wanted my family to accept Matt, and I wanted Matt to feel important and desired by my family. It was a pattern that continued when we started having children. Both Matt and I wanted kids and a big family. One year after marrying, we had our eldest son, then our second, then our third. We decided together that I would give up my teaching position to stay at home with the children, but this caused a huge financial strain. Communication between Matt and I also broke down entirely during the years our family was growing, and we lost all emotional intimacy. We were both exhausted – him from working to financially provide for the family, and me from juggling raising three children close in age. Matt started to feel neglected during those years, when my whole world became our boys. I was losing my identity, too. I no longer had my career, I wasn’t earning my own money, and I had stopped asking myself what I wanted outside of being a mum and keeping our family going. We were both under enormous pressure, but we weren’t talking to each other about it. When we did speak to each other, it was mostly about practicalities, routines, and what jobs needed to be done. Any serious conversation we attempted occasionally would turn into an argument. I remember he often felt the need to escape. He’d go off and do his own thing – cycling or seeing friends – and I never stopped him because I felt guilty that I wasn’t working. He needed the break, I told myself. I wanted a break, too, but felt I didn’t deserve one because I wasn’t contributing financially. It became evident that Matt and I were also changing as people. Our values weren’t aligning as we aged, which I suppose is natural when you marry young. More than anything, I wanted to raise a family, and was prepared for what sacrifice that would entail with young children. This seemed to have changed for Matt, and he increasingly wanted more from life than just a family. There were practical differences, too. Being near my family in London mattered enormously to me, while Matt felt we could have a much easier life financially near his family in Devon. Our boys started noticing the tension in our relationship. The atmosphere changed when we were in the room together. Arguments between us increased. The marriage slowly declined, but any thoughts I had about divorce were buried. It would be shameful to myself and my family to divorce. And how would I raise three children as a single parent? The repercussions of divorce felt catastrophic. I told no one how I was feeling, and I’m sure this is why it took me so long. But in 2018, I started speaking to a spiritual guide and shaman, and everything changed. I had no idea what a shaman was and certainly wasn’t looking for one; I stumbled across her while looking for a facial. We first spoke about accepting that my marriage wasn’t what I wanted, and this was when I started to realise something had to change. She never told me to leave my marriage, but after three or four months, I woke up one morning and knew: this did not have to continue to be my life. ‘Matt started rebuilding his life almost immediately; meanwhile, I was grieving’ When I told Matt I wanted a divorce, he shook my hand – he was done, too. There was almost a sense of relief that one of us had finally said it out loud. We continued to live with each other for six months as we figured out the legal process and finances. It was incredibly painful. We responded to the separation very differently. Matt started rebuilding his life almost immediately, going out, sometimes staying out and starting to date. His view was that we were separated, so he no longer needed to report to me. Meanwhile, I was grieving our marriage while desperately trying to keep family life as normal as possible for the boys. We even attended the occasional wedding and played happy families because hardly anyone knew we’d separated. Our divorce was finalised a year later, in 2019, and we both moved into new properties. We tried several different arrangements like 50/50, alternate weekends, and alternate school holidays, but the boys were deeply unhappy moving between homes. We eventually landed on an untraditional form of nesting, whereby the boys stayed at my house and Matt came to visit them every Tuesday and Thursday. We actually bought my house together so the boys could have stability, rather than both of us renting. When he came, he would cook dinner, help with homework, take the boys to clubs, and leave around their bedtime. If I went away for a weekend, he’d sometimes stay overnight with them. It wasn’t always comfortable having my ex in my home, but it gave the boys one stable base and regular time with their dad. I remember feeling resentful of Matt. I was raising the kids on my own while he freely did whatever he wanted. Though I know the arrangement required compromise from him, too, and he would’ve liked to see them more. Over time, I stopped carrying resentment when I accepted the part I played in the breakdown of the marriage. This led to less emotion in my responses to Matt, less defensiveness, and he changed as I changed. Those changes made way for us to find our way back to each other – as friends, this time. Matt isn’t necessarily my bestie, but we are great friends. He comes to see the boys and we have tea together, talking about our lives – work, relationships, the kids. There’s no emotional charge when he talks about another woman. I can care about him as a person without wanting to be his partner. He’s become a bit like a brother. I know we made the right decision to divorce. We are totally different people who want different things out of life. But I now respect him as the father of my children. During these last seven years, I have asked myself what I want for me a lot more. I’ve ended up becoming a divorce doula, guiding people with practical and emotional support before, during, and after a marriage ends. This eventually led to me writing a book, something I could never have dreamed of. My life didn’t end when Matt and I divorced, although it felt like it at the time; quite the opposite. Divorce forced me to figure out who I was and what I wanted for the first time in my life. *Names have been changed Farhana’s book, ‘She’s Not Done Yet: A Divorce Doula’s Manifest for Women Who Refuse to Stay Stuck’, is out now