Words by San Hitchcock // photo by Aditya Saxena
When you tell people you’re separating, there’s always that tiny pause. The pause is everything. It’s the split second where they decide which face to put on: the pity face, the shocked face, or the “I’m-so-modern-and-supportive” face. My personal favourite is the pity face—it’s like watching someone mentally draw me in a tracksuit, crying into a tub of Neapolitan ice cream.
But here’s the twist: my separation doesn’t feel like failure. It feels like an oddly well-timed plot twist. I’m 35, freshly divorced, and somehow I don’t feel broken or bitter. In fact, I feel lighter. Like I finally put down a handbag I didn’t realise was full of bricks.
My ex and I didn’t go up in flames. No dramatic screaming matches, no plates flung in the direction of an unsuspecting cat. We simply… ran out of road together. What started as a four-lane highway shrank into a one-way street, and eventually into a goat track that only one of us could really walk down. And instead of shoving each other into the ditch, we just said, “Okay then. I guess this is where we part ways.”
Marriage, as society has written it, is supposed to be lifelong. Anything less gets cast as defeat. But honestly? I think it’s a bigger success to recognise when something is done, rather than force it to keep lumbering along like a Netflix series that should’ve ended at Season 3. You can love someone, respect them, and still know they don’t belong in your future chapters. That’s not shameful. It’s respectful.
Since separating, I’ve discovered that there’s power in reclaiming your own orbit. You don’t realise how much of yourself you compromise, sand down, or squish into polite shapes until suddenly you don’t have to anymore. I can put the TV remote where I want. I can buy coriander without a debate. I can plan my weekends without triangulating another person’s calendar. These things sound small, but they’re seismic. I feel like I’ve been reunited with the oddball parts of me I’d quietly mothballed for the sake of marital harmony.
For example: I sing loudly to 90s boy bands while cleaning. I dance while waiting for the kettle. I eat breakfast for dinner. None of these quirks are revolutionary, but they are mine. And separation, far from being a death knell, has given me back the room to play with them.
It’s also shown me a truth I wish we all learned earlier: relationships don’t need to end in hatred to be valid. My ex is not my enemy. He’s just someone I once loved deeply, who now lives in a different orbit. Sometimes we still text each other dumb memes.
I think of our marriage like a limited edition print. It was beautiful, it hung proudly on the wall, it taught me a lot. But eventually, the colours faded and the frame no longer fit the room. So I took it down. That doesn’t mean I regret buying it. It means I’m making space for new art.
So if you see me now, dancing around my kitchen, coriander on the chopping board, Backstreet Boys blasting, you’ll know this isn’t a woman who failed. This is a woman who rearranged. Who trusted that endings can be beginnings in disguise.
And for the first time in years, I feel like the main character in my own story. Not the supporting act, not the dutiful wife, not the half of a couple who couldn’t quite stretch themselves into forever. Just me. And honestly? That feels like the biggest success of all.
