‘When my husband told me the marriage was over my first feeling was relief.” “You can’t blame your ex for everything.” “I love my husband but here’s why I want to cheat.” “Divorce is not a licence to destroy.” “Ashamed or embarrassed by your divorce?” And “Why I stayed in my marriage and why I then left it.”
These are all recent discussion topics on the Divorce Magazine, a UK-based website that caters for people with concerns about their relationship, who are considering a divorce or who have just come out of one.
"A lot of the people who read our magazine online have asked us to change the name of it," says Soila Sindiyo, the site's founder. "They would prefer something "nicer and more gentle", because the very word 'divorce' sounds so harsh.
“And this really is why we set up the magazine; despite the fact that divorce happens so often, there is still a stigma attached to it. Readers will decline to follow or link with us on social media because they don’t want their friends, family or colleagues to know.”
Sindiyo, a child psychologist, got the idea for the website after writing When Love Is Broken, a read-together book for children and parents going through divorce.
Sindiyo insists the site is not pro-divorce. “We are not here to encourage divorce,” she says. “We are here to provide valuable information that can help people through what is a very difficult time. We believe that divorce, armed with the right sort of information and support, needn’t be hell – or can be less hellish.”
Sindiyo’s experience of divorce was a big motivating factor in setting up the site. Her first divorce was pre-internet. “Before being able to look up material online we had to depend on solicitors, and it became acrimonious,” she says. “My second experience of divorce was less confrontational, because, through plenty of online research, we got to know what was out there for us, what our options were.”
Those include a relationship being repaired and the marriage continuing happily, and alternative methods of dealing with difficulties in a relationship.
“On the magazine we offer help, support and resources before the divorce process begins, and also the same service for those who have just completed their divorce. On either side of divorce, people have a lot of questions,” says Sindiyo.
The website has a core staff of three, but it has many contributors and is updated on a near daily basis.
Infidelity
Its content shows how many questions people require answers to, whatever the state of their relationship. Is infidelity an absolute marriage-breaker or can it be worked through? Is it bad to feel happy that you are getting a divorce? What rights do grandparents have post-divorce? Is it true that people who meet online are three times more likely to be divorced? Does having daughters make divorce more likely?
Because divorce is such a deeply personal matter, Sindiyo has to be vigilant about what type of contributions they publish. “We are a trusted site, and we aim to remain that way by making sure all our contributions come from industry experts. We have legal articles from lawyers, financial articles from financial advisers and wellbeing articles from established psychologists and health professionals.
“We also run articles from contributors who have chosen to share their experience of divorce with us – details are changed to protect the subject’s privacy. What I’ve learned is that, despite the fact that divorce is a very personal journey, it’s also something you can’t hide; it’s like trying to hide a pregnancy.”
The last Irish census, in 2011, showed that the number of divorces here had jumped from 35,000 in 2002 to 87,000 in 2011 and that the number of people remarrying had more than doubled since 2002.
The number of people identifying as “separated” stood at 116,194 in 2011. However, Ireland continues to have one of the lowest divorce rates in Europe.
Tony Moore, a counsellor and psychotherapist with Relationships Ireland, a marriage and relationships counselling service, says, "We need to move away from judgmental views and understand that being divorced does not make you a worse person. Nor is it admitting you have failed. Being divorced does not mean I/we/they are damaged goods. It's about time we all acknowledged that divorce doesn't just happen to someone else – it happens to people like us."
Of marriage breakdown in Ireland, Moore adds, “Divorce in Ireland is still very new. It can be messy, expensive and confrontational. Very harsh judgments can be made about people who are divorced. Publicly, many will be nonjudgmental. Scratch the surface and out will come decades of prejudice.
“Because only a small number of people in Ireland have been divorced there are still negative connotations associated with divorce. It is not until people are confronted with the breakdown of their own relationship that their response is more compassionate.”
Irish readers
“Yes, we do get readers from Ireland,” says Sindiyo. “But we get readers from all over the world. What attracts a lot of people, I believe, are our articles on family mediation, a service that is still relatively unknown but that is a truly great way to deal with divorce in a nonadversarial way”.
There is, perhaps, no such thing as an easy divorce, but there can be a better, less acrimonious and confrontational handling of a difficult situation with a better outcome for spouses and children alike, according to Sindiyo. “Divorce is something that now happens in people’s lives,” she says. “I know from personal experience how tough divorce can be, so I would never encourage it. But at the magazine we can help to lighten the load if that decision is taken. The very term ‘divorce’ still spells failure, with connotations of suffering and hard times, but you do learn lessons from it that you bring forward with you in your new life. Your divorce doesn’t have to define you.”
thedivorcemagazine.co.uk relationshipsireland.com
