What to do on your wedding anniversary when you’re no longer married

The 8th of June would have been my 18th wedding anniversary. A year ago, I spent this day still married, so technically ‘celebrating’ my 17th wedding anniversary. Except we were just a couple of months away from getting that decree absolute, living separately and very much no longer married. But we were. On paper. Still married.

This year, we are not. The counter stopped at 17. You could say theoretically it stopped at 16 as that was the last year we were still together in the marital home. But if you really want to get forensic about it, when should the timer stop? Is it when you stop loving each other? Does anyone know when that actually happens? Or is it just a gradual dawning that things aren’t quite what they used to be?

Should the timer have stopped back in 2013, just 11 years into our marriage, when I learned of his infidelity. The first time round (or rather, the first I am aware of). Should it have stopped in 2007, just five years in, when he raised the issue of divorce out of the blue the first time. Or perhaps it should have been just two years in, when I felt a distinct shift in our marriage after the birth of our son.

I guess marriage is the union of two people through good and bad, so I’m going to go with being married for 17 years.

But now? How do you mark the day that will forever be a reminder that you failed at marriage, that you never quite made the China gift set stage of anniversaries? A day that was always an annual reflective moment, when you’d fondly remember that happiest of days spent with family and friends, while making a lifelong commitment to the one you loved. Having a marriage end adjusts all of the thoughts you associated with times past. It’s not just the end of your relationship but a rewriting of all your memories.

In years to come, will this day pass by without notice? How many years of not being married does it take to stop remembering the day you got married?

It is ridiculously easy to fall down a rabbit hole of sadness, bitterness and regret, before wallowing in a pool of self pity when dates like this roll around. I literally had Celine Dion (for god’s sake) playing while drinking cheap wine and eating crappy pizza alone, psyching myself up to leap off the diving board into that pathetic pool for a good old splash-about of feeling sorry for myself.

Luckily I took advice from something I read online on this very topic. I told my support group. In this case, my friends and amazing neighbours. All it took was one text from them to halt this spiral into self-flagellation.

They suggested – in slightly less delicate terms than I am about to use – that I use the day to celebrate the start of a new chapter, to celebrate all I have achieved, to celebrate my two children, and to celebrate no longer being with someone who doesn’t deserve me.

And so I am going to do exactly that. And if you are reading this and are divorced and are about to book a ticket to the land of Poor Me, please do the same.

Here goes:

• I have my own lovely house which I have bought and decorated all by myself with zero compromise
• I have got myself back into full time employment after 15 years of self-employment, with a proper job and am pretty good at it
• I have two teenage sons – who despite having a full blown punch up about whose turn it was to wipe the kitchen counters today – are actually lovely.
• I have incredible friends who have stuck with me and buoy me up every day.
• I genuinely have the best neighbours ever. Period. And I’d never had met them if I hadn’t moved house.
• I have travelled on my own and met amazing people and loved the empowerment it gave me.
• I have realised how capable I am at most things, which I previously designated as blue jobs.
• I have a whole new, unknown future which could become anything and that’s pretty exciting
• I can do whatever I want, when I want, how I want. No compromising
• Most importantly, I have rediscovered the person I used to be and I quite like her.

So happy one year of not being married anniversary to me. Sod the pity party. I’m going to get the tunes on (no more Celine) and celebrate. From here on in, I declare the 8th of June to be ‘You can do anything you want’ day.

Feel free to join me. It’s a much happier place than that pity pool.