We divorced and sold our home – then fell back in love

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. Father of two, 38-year-old Alex*, spent 10 years happily married to his husband Adam. But problems arose when they essentially became one person. Interview by Kat Storr If you were going to write down how you would want your marriage to be, ours would be it. Adam* and I met through friends; we had a very romantic first year with holidays and trips and getting to know each other. He proposed on our first anniversary. It was a big proposal with a treasure trail across Kent and friends were involved in the surprise. Then we got married a year later to the day. There was a lot of romance and we had a very happy marriage for a few years. We went down the very traditional route, much like both of our parents’ marriages. We subconsciously modelled our marriage on them. This included small things like getting up in the morning together and going to bed at the same time. We essentially became one person and when we look back now, we can see that this is where we went wrong. We were “AlexandAdam” and started to be seen as one entity rather than individuals. Shorts It was hard because for a long time, we didn’t have any other same-sex friends who were married and we were the only ones with children. I would say that 20-30 per cent of people that I know in same-sex relationships are either in an open relationship or they are exploring sex with other people. I know couples who are on Grindr together and have fun with other people together. This was completely different to our relationship and not something either of us wanted to explore. Adam is five years older than me and was a bit further along in life. I always knew I wanted to get married but I was only 26. I look back now and think: “God, that was so young.” And while everything looked happy and settled from the outside, things started to go awry a few years into the marriage. Adam was getting busier with work and I became the main caregiver to our two adopted sons. I got into a place where I wasn’t happy but I couldn’t verbalise it and I was struggling with anxiety and mood swings. I couldn’t tell Adam how I was feeling, so I would go in on myself. He was doing his best to help me but he was going through his own struggles, with big changes and challenges in his professional life, and turning 40, which hit him hard. In August 2023, I started counselling on my own. I thought I was going crazy. I was having very depressive thoughts, which were very different from my usual energetic personality. In early December, we started couples counselling, but at a session in March 2024, Adam told me he wasn’t “in love” with me any more. It was a shock but I knew deep down it was on the cards because the last six months had been so hard. We filed for divorce the next week. We’re the kind of people who, if we’re going to do something, we do it well and we do it efficiently. Our divorce was finalised in the minimum amount of time you can do it. It was completed in early 2025, and throughout the whole process we continued our counselling. It was really important to us that we could co-parent really well, process the marriage and its breakdown and discuss how to move forward. We didn’t use solicitors; we did all of the negotiations through our counsellor from the legal service, amicable, which saved us tens of thousands of pounds. While the divorce was quite straightforward, life itself was slightly complicated because we were still doing things like going on holiday together. I still loved Adam and he loved me, and we didn’t want to lose all of the amazing times we’d had and replace them with bad memories. But during this time we were dating other people and Adam started a new relationship. It sounds smooth but it wasn’t. I was embarrassed that we hadn’t made it work. There had been quite a lot of pressure from friends when we were married to be a perfect same-sex marriage example. People would say to us: “I aspire to be as happy as you two.” I think you can be so aware of the generations who fought and campaigned to give you the right to have it at all. And for same-sex male couples specifically, there’s a particular stigma around seeking help – this unspoken pressure to just deal with it and not to show vulnerability. That culture of stoicism doesn’t serve anyone. We’d only been officially divorced for a few months when something changed. After selling our family home in August 2025, we both realised that we were “in love” with each other and that while the time out had been good for us, we wanted to be together again. We’ve been back together for almost a year now, but it hasn’t been plain sailing. I found out that some of my anxiety and paranoia at the end of the marriage had been justified because Adam had been having an affair in those final months. We had to process all of that which was really tough. But, I would say that if there was ever a time to find out that had happened, it was after we’d separated. If I’d found out about his cheating while we were still together, the divorce would have gone very differently. And if I’d found out in five years’ time, it would also have been a very different situation. When it comes to our eight and nine year old sons, I think we’ve done a really good job of explaining everything to them. We asked our therapist how we should tell them and the types of language we should use. In the end, we took them out for a dog walk in the woods, to neutral ground, and explained that we weren’t going to be married any more but that we were still best friends and we’re still a family even if we live in different houses. They were very relaxed and said, “OK, cool,” and then ran off to find big sticks in the woods. We never used the word divorced because it has horrible connotations and is so preloaded with negativity. We wanted to try to do something different with them while they’re still young. The situation now is that I’ve moved into Adam’s house, so we’re all together again. We have very clearly defined roles that we’ve discussed and chosen. I’m not working so my focus is on the boys and Adam works, but the resentment of previous years has gone. While we both saw other people when we were apart, we still won’t be exploring an open relationship. It’s just not for us. When it comes to us as a couple, we’re trying to maintain our separate lives to avoid becoming one entity again. I encourage Adam to go out and see his friends and have a social life. We don’t do everything together anymore. We know the traps to fall into and we just try to avoid those now. We haven’t really talked about getting married a second time but I think we will. We’re both too romantic not to. *names have been changed