divorced

Sometimes a good divorce is better than a bad marriage.

No One Said it Would be Easy
I know I wasn't promised a rose garden, nor was I ever told the road would be less bumpy for me. As a matter of fact, I knew without a doubt from a young age that my life would be a hard one to live. A product of the seventies, raised on the streets of the eighties, and lived through the harsher reality of the nineties.
By Mother Combs15 days ago in Families
How Family Mediation Helped Us Talk When Everything Else Failed
We Found a Way to Talk Again The last proper conversation we had before mediation was about a school jumper. Our youngest had lost his, and somehow that turned into forty minutes of accusations about who was supposed to be keeping track of what, who had dropped the ball again, and whether this was yet another example of the other person not paying attention to the things that actually mattered.
By Jess Knauf15 days ago in Families
The Night Everything Fell Apart
The Night Everything Fell Apart Ubaid I used to believe that life collapses slowly—like a building with cracks that warn you before it falls. I was wrong. Sometimes, everything shatters in a single night. It was a Thursday evening when the sky looked strangely heavy, as if it knew something I didn’t. I remember sitting at my desk, pretending to work while my mind wandered through unfinished conversations and silent disappointments. My phone lay beside me, face down, as if hiding from the truth it was about to deliver. At 9:17 p.m., it rang. I almost didn’t answer. It was my younger sister, Areeba. She rarely called me at night. Her voice trembled when I picked up. “Bhai… you need to come home.” There are certain tones in a person’s voice that freeze your blood. This was one of them. “What happened?” I asked, already standing up, my heart racing. “Just come. Please.” The drive home felt endless. Every red light felt personal, as though the universe had chosen to delay me. My mind ran through a hundred possibilities—none of them good. By the time I reached the house, my hands were shaking. The front door was open. That was the first sign that something was wrong. Inside, the living room lights were on, but the house felt darker than ever. My mother sat on the couch, her face pale, her hands wrapped tightly around her scarf. Areeba stood beside her, eyes red from crying. “Where’s Abbu?” I asked. No one answered. That silence said more than words ever could. “He left,” my mother finally whispered. Left. The word didn’t make sense. My father wasn’t the kind of man who “left.” He was the quiet pillar of our home—the one who paid the bills, fixed broken taps, and watched the news every night at exactly 10 p.m. “He said he couldn’t do this anymore,” Areeba said, her voice cracking. “He packed a bag and walked out.” It felt like the floor shifted beneath me. For years, I had noticed the tension. The late-night arguments behind closed doors. The cold silences at dinner. The forced smiles during family gatherings. But I had convinced myself it was temporary. Every family has problems, I thought. We’ll get through it. That night, I realized denial can be a dangerous comfort. “Did he say where he’s going?” I asked. My mother shook her head. “He just said he needs peace.” Peace. The word echoed bitterly in my mind. What about us? What about the peace of the family he was leaving behind? I walked into my parents’ bedroom. The cupboard door was slightly open. Half his clothes were gone. His watch box was empty. On the bedside table, there was a folded piece of paper. It wasn’t addressed to anyone. Just a few lines in his familiar handwriting: I tried. I really did. But sometimes staying hurts more than leaving. Forgive me. I read it three times, hoping the meaning would change. It didn’t. Anger rose inside me like fire. How could he walk away? How could he leave my mother to explain this to relatives, to neighbors, to a society that thrives on whispers? How could he leave Areeba, who still needed him to check her math homework? And how could he leave me—with the sudden weight of being “the man of the house”? That night, everything fell apart—not just our family structure, but the illusions I had built around it. Around midnight, the power went out. Normally, we would joke about the timing. That night, no one said a word. The house sank into darkness, lit only by the faint glow of streetlights filtering through the curtains. I sat on the floor beside my mother. For the first time in my life, she looked small. “I failed,” she murmured. “You didn’t,” I said quickly, though I wasn’t sure what I believed. “This isn’t your fault.” But blame has a way of creeping into broken spaces. It fills the gaps with questions that have no answers. Around 2 a.m., my phone buzzed. A message from Abbu. Take care of them. That was it. No explanation. No location. No promise to return. Just a responsibility handed over like an inheritance. I stared at the screen, my chest tight. I wanted to call him, to shout, to demand answers. Instead, I turned the phone off. Because deep down, I knew this wasn’t just about one fight or one bad day. This was years of unspoken pain finally spilling over. As the night stretched on, reality settled in. Tomorrow, I would have to face relatives asking uncomfortable questions. I would have to manage finances I barely understood. I would have to be strong for my sister when I felt like collapsing myself. But in that darkness, something unexpected happened. We talked. For the first time in years, my mother opened up about her loneliness. About how silence had replaced partnership. About how pride had stopped both of them from seeking help. Areeba admitted she had heard more arguments than we realized. And I confessed that I had seen the cracks but chose to ignore them because it was easier than confronting the truth. The night that broke us also stripped us of pretenses. By dawn, the sky softened into pale blue. Birds began to chirp as if nothing had changed. But everything had. Our family would never look the same again. There would be judgment, financial strain, and emotional wounds that wouldn’t heal overnight. There would be moments of anger and days of deep sadness. Yet, as sunlight slowly filled the room, I understood something important: Falling apart doesn’t always mean the end. Sometimes, it’s the beginning of rebuilding—without lies, without forced smiles, without pretending everything is fine. That night, I lost the version of my family I thought I had. But I gained something else. Clarity. Strength I didn’t know I possessed. And the painful, necessary understanding that love cannot survive where honesty is absent. The night everything fell apart was the worst night of my life.
By Ubaid 16 days ago in Families
Wait, is it okay not to go home for the Holidays?
Kids these days are choosing to stay home rather than see their parents or their other family members for the holidays. I found it a bit absurd and tried to explain that it is important to bond with family, because you don’t know when you'll see them again, until someone called me out for not having visited my family in over 20 years.
By stephanie borges18 days ago in Families
What Fathers Uniquely Provide
The Error of Treating Parenting Roles as Functionally Identical Modern parenting theory often begins with the assumption that mothers and fathers are largely interchangeable, differing only in style or temperament. From this view, any deficits in one parent can be compensated for by the other through increased emotional effort, sensitivity, or presence. Parenting becomes a question of intention and quantity rather than function and role. This assumption is appealing because it aligns with cultural preferences for symmetry and fairness, but it collapses under closer examination of developmental outcomes.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast20 days ago in Families
Property Settlement: Contributions Explained
Property settlements have this way of feeling like a math problem… while also being one of the most emotional things a person can go through.
By Dan Toombs23 days ago in Families
My Journey to an Amicable Divorce: It Wasn’t Easy, But It Was Worth It. AI-Generated.
I didn’t wake up one morning and decide to end my marriage. It happened slowly. Quietly. And with a lot of doubt. By the time we admitted our relationship was over, we had already spent months trying to hold things together for the sake of our family. We weren’t arguing all the time. There was no dramatic breaking point. But we had grown apart, and pretending otherwise was starting to do more harm than good.
By Jess Knauf24 days ago in Families
Are gifts included in property settlements in Australia?
Usually, yes — but the “how” depends on timing, intention, and what happened to the gift once it landed in your life. Someone’s parents hand over $30k to help with a deposit. A grandparent gives jewellery “just for you”. A mate transfers money after separation because things are tight. Or there’s a wedding gift that quietly turns into a new lounge, a holiday, or a debt paid off.
By Dan Toombs24 days ago in Families
The 777 Rule for Healthy Marriages Why Every Couple Needs
My husband set a reminder on his phone. Tuesday, 7 PM: "Date night." I wanted to throw the phone at him. We'd been married eight years. Two kids. A mortgage that made me nauseous every month. And now my husband was treating me like a dentist appointment? Something to schedule, check off, forget?
By Understandshe.com27 days ago in Families
When Things were Okay. Content Warning.
Corey I was never the type to get introuble, or do things that I wasnt supposed to. But when things fell apart, I lost a part of myself. Maybe all of me. I never wanted to change, but when the world changes around you, it makes you change. My mom is in the hospital. My dad is dead. My brother is, well, he's just trying to keep us all together. I guess I already gave up on family. My dad died in a car accident. And my mom tried to kill herself. She was ready to leave us to stay with dad. Dad wasnt perfect. He didn't know how to be a father, but neither did he try to learn. Regardless, she loved him more than Us.... How tragic. It broke me, realizing. Tory is too young to understand what is happening. But he'll understand in a couple of years. I think that is what pisses me off more. I grew a lot of hatred for my brother. Its not his fault he doesnt understand. But oh how I cant deal with him still being happy, not realizing whats at stake. Am I in the wrong?
By Chxse27 days ago in Families
The Spousal Maintenance Conversation We Avoided for Months - Until Mediation Helped Us Tackle It. AI-Generated.
For months, we talked around the issue. But never about it. We talked about the children. We talked about the house.
By Jess Knaufabout a month ago in Families
They Agreed on the Finances - Until the House Became a Problem. AI-Generated.
She remembers the relief more than anything else. The separation had been emotional, but civil. Conversations stayed calm. They both wanted the same thing, to move on without dragging things through court.
By Family Law Serviceabout a month ago in Families