Most brides that will tell you that in the days leading up to their wedding all they can think about is seating arrangements and flowers and weather predictions and making it through to the honeymoon. But in the fortnight leading up to my wedding, all I could think about was divorce.
My thoughts during that time included things like: what would my partner be like to deal with through an experience like that? If we were to have children and separate, would he do his 50 per cent share of the work and be someone that I could see at birthdays and celebrations?
They weren’t thoughts that were keeping me awake at night and filling me with dread, but I was certainly giving them time and considering my possible future realities seriously.
To be clear, I was confident that the person I was marrying was the right person for me. One year into our marriage I still believe that.
We work hard on our relationship and prioritise one another's needs. We talk openly and honestly and work through our issues as they arise. We enjoy each other's company and have social lives outside of one another. We dated for four years before getting engaged. We lived together; we travelled together; we ticked every box of really knowing one another before committing to a lifetime in one another's presence. But so do a lot of other couples. And as statistics from around the world will show you, a lot of people's marriages end in divorce, so why should I think that mine would be any different.
My parents separated when I was around six years old. And while they both love me and my siblings dearly, the fact that they have no love for one another is not something either of them was ever able to hide.
I don't doubt that for one minute that on their wedding day, they both thought they would be together forever, but it became glaringly evident to me ahead of my own big day that they had never taken a minute to consider all of the possibilities a partnership with one another would entail.
They imagined the best, but not the worst. And so when it arrived, they were both in for a horrible, drawn-out shock that still - 25 years later - hasn't settled.
I didn't want that for myself or my fiance or any future children we may have. I wanted to know that if that unimaginable moment did one day arrive, I knew what and who I would be getting.
So I looked back on who he was when he was at his worst. How he behaved. How he treated others. How he treated me. And eventually, I came to the conclusion that while it wasn't great (who is at their worst?) it also wasn't terrible.
He is never cruel. He does not say things in the heat of the moment. He always, no matter what, shows respect to the people he loves and walks away from heated situations where unforgivable words could be thrown.
He wants to have children has on more than one occasion said he would like to be the primary stay-at-home parent, which makes me confident that yes, he would be a present father and not just someone who shows up at school assemblies and pays the minimum in child support.
Often the hardest question in a divorce is what’s the best thing for the kids? Post continues.
After a week of mulling over the questions internally, I told my two best friends (who were also set to be my bridesmaids) about the thoughts I'd been having. One told me I was being macabre and said that thinking about things that may never happen was tempting fate. The other, though, told me I was being realistic and supported my decision.
And eventually, as if tempting fate, I told him all of the things I had been thinking about.
At first, he was upset and said he was sad that I was thinking about the end at the exact moment I should be thinking about the start. But the more we spoke about it, the more he came around to what I was saying and began to think about it himself.
We talked openly and honestly about how we would like to navigate a day that may never come and how hoped the other would behave should it occur. And two days later, we got married.
It's still too early to know if we'll be one of the lucky couples that really did find the right person and manage to make it work. But I do have a feeling that discussing the worst opened us up to allowing the best in.
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Before we got married, we had to do a premarital counselling course through the Catholic Church and (much to our surprise) one of the questions we were told to ask ourselves and each other during one of the reflection periods was, "What would make me leave this person?".
It was a little confronting but like the other says, it really helps send you into marriage with your eyes open.
We had to do the same thing through our church (Southern Baptist), and we were asked the same exact question. It definitely opened our eyes. And while a lot of people would hurriedly say they would never leave no matter what, we were realistic, we thought about it and talked about it, and came to the same conclusion, only an affair in which the guilty party involved refused to end said affair or habitually cheated would drive us to separate.
My husband is a wonderful man, even when he gets mad, he knows himself well enough to just stop and walk away before he says or does something he will regret. We are both like that, so abuse would not be a possibility.