The day my partner, Olly, and I found out that I was pregnant at the age of 42 I was ecstatic but anxious about how the world would judge me. I was daring to have a baby in a time frame that worked for me but that an internet’s worth of people deemed “too soon”.
After I announced the end of my marriage on Instagram in September I was accused of glamorising divorce when all I was doing was writing honestly about it. As I said at the time, there’s nothing glamorous or joyful about the untangling of a life built together. It’s hard and costly and painful, but more than one in three marriages in the UK end this way, and my ex and I wanted to show that it’s possible to get through it amicably, with grace and kindness. There was a sense of relief alongside the grief, and maybe even pride in how it was navigated with our daughters, who are 11 and 7 and were at the centre of every decision we made.
I met Olly, 40, on the dating app Hinge at the end of last year, and when we announced our engagement in May I faced similar commentary, this time for moving on too quickly. That, despite having a far greater sense of self and life experience at 42 than when I first made the seismic decision to get married, aged 24. There is no denying the stigma and shame attached to moving on after a divorce, especially when you’re a woman.
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As with every divorcee I know, friends have dropped off in the process. I’ve learnt that divorce can make other people uncomfortable, especially if they’re facing a difficult juncture in their own marriage. In the past when friends told me they were divorcing, part of me was jealous of the bravery it had taken for them to make such a decision — to know when to get out. It may have looked as though I moved on quickly, but my marriage was over three years prior to exit. We officially separated after 17 years together, 13 of them married, in March last year(six months before making our split public), and have both found love since.
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There is a warmth and sympathy for divorced dads — we want to know they’re OK, that they’re being looked after. We hail them as heroes for looking after their own children, and when they meet somebody we’re pleased for them. It’s not the same for women. Society expects divorced mothers to crack on and to think only of their children, never themselves. It’s an uneven playing field.
When I announced my engagement online people would comment: “Think of your children!” No one has said the same to my ex, despite him meeting his girlfriend before I met Olly. We’re both happy, but I’m judged for that and he isn’t. So I was rightly anxious the night before announcing my pregnancy on Instagram. I’ve navigated recurrent miscarriage, and that alone left me broken every time I saw a pregnancy post, so I was aware that it was potentially triggering for people struggling to get (or stay) pregnant.
My story is far from the Disney happy-ever-after that was sold to me as a little girl. Although our friends and family are over the moon for us, I knew others would judge my genuine, unending love for this incredibly kind and beautiful manI had met “so soon” after my marriage ended as some form of midlife crisis. But there was no crisis. It was more of an opportunity to close one chapter of my life and open a new one. A full stop, with a new sentence forming. It’s not failure but change. Moving on indeed.
Despite my cortisol levels being high as I hit that publish button, the reaction has been overwhelmingly kind. I’ve received thousands of messages from women who have said I’ve given them a glimmer of hope: about life after divorce, about blending a family and about finding happiness outside of the fairytale template. And about how age doesn’t matter — you can find love and start again in your forties — and that it isn’t over until it’s over.
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Someone commented: “Do we really ‘deserve’ happiness, though? Genuine question.” And I thought, yes — why not? While generations of women didn’t believe they did and so stayed with their husbands supposedly for the sake of the kids, my generation are more willing to ask whether their relationship is bringing them joy, more willing to question whether their “I do” should have been an “I don’t” when they experience an aggressive explosion or patronising dismissal. To be clear, that didn’t happen with my previous relationship, but these are common scenarios I hear about from divorced friends.
I read something recently that said while people assume what’s best for their children is sticking together as a family unit no matter what, in reality what matters more for their mental health is the mental health of their mother. Happy parents equals happy kids. And I’m happy, and so are my ex and his new girlfriend. I have a huge respect for Olly’s ex, and I’m enjoying getting to know her. And yes, the kids truly are all right.
One point I keep coming back to is this: children shouldn’t be left managing their parents’ emotions, they shouldn’t be worrying about us being OK. If I forget to send them off with their PE kit they don’t need to worry about telling their dad or him getting cross with me. When I told my ex about this new pregnancy he rang our daughters that night to tell them how happy he was for me. They don’t need to worry about getting caught in the crossfire. It always comes back to the happiness of those two girls.
Every night I untangle the knots in the girls’ hair and we chat about the knots that need untangling in their lives. We’ve talked more than ever this past year, and it has brought us all closer together. We chat about school, friendships and our family, and I know they’re thriving and happy. I feel closer to them because I’ve been fighting for every moment of connection when I’m with them. There truly won’t be an emotional stone left unturned as we form a blended whole.
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There’s this huge excitement about a new baby landing in the family, and my girls and Olly’s two children talk to the bump at every turn — a little person who’s a little bit of all of them. We carve out dedicated time with our kids, and some nights I’m with the girls on my own while Olly stays with his children. Other nights we’re one big blended family. Then there are the nights when the girls are with their dad and I find one of their little socks, or walk past their empty bedroom, and nothing can counter that quiet heartache I feel at being apart from them.
Olly understands that, but we know the other side of that too — the joy you feel when they come home. We know they’re happy when they’re away from us as well. My daughter talks about how her dad lights up when his girlfriend walks in the room. We often remind ourselves how lucky we are that our children have an extra person who loves them. Equally, they feel comfortable talking to him about Olly and the growing baby. I’ve had several miscarriages, and at 20 weeks there’s a way to go. I’m 43 now. Only when I hear our baby’s cry this autumn will I celebrate.
I’m more than ten years older than I was when I last had a baby, but that means I know now what really matters. I’m looking forward to new motherhood with a sense of calm I didn’t have when I was an anxious younger mum.
We work as a massive blended family, and while there are bumps in the road, nobody tells this story: that life can be OK, brilliant even, after divorce. I was recently chatting to my youngest daughter and she said: “Mummy, you keep saying blended a lot. What does it mean?” I asked her what happens when you blend flour, sugar, butter and eggs, and she answered, cake. I then explained to her that all those things blended together make something even better, and that’s our new family.
When Olly and I say our vows next December our five kids will be bridesmaids and page boys at the venue where we had our first date. We may not have a Disney happy ending, but we’ve rewritten our own.
As told to Maria Lally
