by Simon Richelieu

Created on: August 09, 2009   Last Updated: August 12, 2009

"If you had done the washing up a little more often you would have had sex coming out of your ears!" an interesting take on my failings in our marriage, and to my mind something of a re-writing of history by my ex-wife. We were having a frank, hear-to-heart discussion some years after our divorce had been finalized. On reflection some time later I remembered that for most of our married life we had a dishwasher machine, hence my conclusion that this was another of those occasions when what had happened in the marriage was recalled in very different ways by the two main protagonists.

Perhaps the most important advice that can be given to the newly divorced is this: Look forward not back. It is quite natural to want to mull over the past, and to become stressed and indignant about injustices that you perceive to have occurred, and there seems to be a belief in many quarters that one should not remain friendly with one's ex, and even that revenge should be sought after. Revenge stories of course make good copy and good television, I well remember the lady who cut off the sleeves of her ex-husband's expensive suits, and distributed his equally expensive wine cellar around the village, but it takes two to tango, and although the husband in that case maintained a discreet silence, I am convinced that there may well have been faults on both sides of the bed.

On the question of remaining friendly with one's ex I am a firm believer in the desirability of this, particularly bearing in mind that if you have created a family together you owe it to them to remain at least civilized. I have also found, in talking to many people during and after my divorce that nearly everybody has suffered a major personal tragedy during the course of their married life, and if this is the case it is as well to remember that from the perspective of your ex-partner, and have some consideration. This is not to say that you cannot take a slightly ironic and mocking view of the person you used to worship as the perfect wife or husband. My colleagues at work used to derive great amusement from the fact that I invariably alluded to my ex-wife as the old trout, and even more amusement when I become involved with a new partner, and referred to her as the new trout.

By looking forward and making a successful new life one can achieve far more than by simply exacting a small-minded and petty revenge. You win on two counts: by proving in the words of the song that I Can Get

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