D.I.V.O.R.C.E.

I'd already spoken to my mum earlier in the day. But she phoned back early yesterday evening to tell me my cousin's husband had left her. He'd been having a secret affair for a year and straight out of the blue he left, leaving his middle aged wife and their child. My mum said she was shocked. Of all the marriages in the family this was the one she thought would last. I don't know if all those marriages included mine. I never know with her.

How was I supposed to feel? I'll tell you how I feel. Quite good about it, really. Good to hear about a marital break up in another part of our extended family. First it was my parents, then my sister. But those splits were subject to my dad's influence, weren't they? Everybody knew he was the lowest of the low, going off with a woman twenty-odd years his junior. And it was his blood that made my sister leave her husband.

Well, it's time for my extended family to join the modern world. Divorce happens. Yes, it's painful for the people concerned but we're talking about human beings here, not devils and saints. The question is, will my cousin's husband join my dad in the devil corner? Probably. One tends to see things in black and white from the moral high ground.