My divorce was finalized last week. It was a terrible experience, not the divorce but the marriage. I was lost for seven years. And it was such a relief that I got ‘me’ back. Yes it is a difficult life, but I am used to do stuff alone even when I was in that relationship. The family court in Coimbatore has given me such meaningful experiences. The first time I went there I was real sad. Sad not because it was the beginning of the end of my marriage, but because I saw many women in worse state than I was. There was this weird silence with high tension in the waiting area which anyone who walks in can feel. The place was crowded with all mismatched couples and a few parents.
There was this one young girl with her dad and I saw their advocate talking to them. She seemed friendly and I started talking to her. She was more than okay with the idea of divorce. She showed me the guy she had married, a tall baldie who looked very normal. They were married for a very short time and they decided to end it legally with mutual consent. I thought it was very smart of them, unlike me who went through a hell of seven long years. The other women I saw were not solucky as the young girl.
Their sad faces told a different story, a story that is not anywhere near its end. It is not the separation that gives relief; it is the emotional detachment from the spouse that caused/causes pain. The process of divorce is easier if it has mutual consent, if not it is an opening to a mine field. I saw couples quarrelling in the waiting area and even in front of the judge.
The most heartrending scene for me was to see a young mother who had come with her tiny baby. The mother and the grandmother of the baby tried everything to comfort the crying baby. Finally they gave in and the mom started to feed the baby covering it with a towel on her shoulders. She felt really awkward to do that with so many men around her. She couldn’t leave the place too as her name would be called any minute. And as it is most of the time for some of us (life is unfair) her name was called and she pulled the baby from her breast, gave it to her mother, and moved into the courtroom hastily. I saw her husband too going in, who had been standing there all along with no emotion whatsoever, looking at the crying baby and the two women struggling to comfort it, like any other man there.
That reminded me of the horrible things that had happened to me by this one man whom I loved dearly once. My baby was cranky all the time, crying mostlyexcept when she was sleeping. This one night I was doing some work in the kitchen and I heard her crying. I thought her dad would take care as he was lying next to her. But she didn’t stop. So I went in and it disturbed me to see him so undisturbed by her tears. I bent down to pick her up telling him why he couldn’t do something about her crying. He with all his might kicked me at my chest, sending me sharp pain as I was lactating then. He went back to sleep and I came out the bedroom carrying my sweet baby. I have decided not to let my screwed up marriage affect me in any way, but this incident is something that brings me tears every time I think of it.
Standing there in the court with all such thoughts flooding my mind only made me want to be stronger than ever before. And on the final day, at the same place, while waiting for my name to be called, I went to him and sat next to him talking. By that I told him indirectly that I am in control of my life and that he cannot stop me from being happy. I went to café coffee day straight from the family court and had me a chocolate cake. Though I have it every time I go there, it tasted much better that day.
NO WORDS...
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