Well, except death I suppose.

So, this isn’t quite how I imagined my “February 2024” post to be, in the non-existent grand plan of “posts that I can write to meet my self-imposed one per month quota.”

Last Thursday, February the 8th 2024, my wife Jem and I made the decision to separate and, ultimately, divorce.

We’ve had something of a rollercoaster of a relationship in the last couple of years particularly, which has essentially magnified incompatibilities that were, strictly speaking, always present.

We both tried hard to make things work, and we’ve both done things that we shouldn’t have. I’ve learned that I have a lot of stuff stored up in my subconscious, difficulties and traumas from past relationships and other aspects of my life that I really should have put more effort into trying to deal with long before now, so that’s something I’m going to be focusing on more in 2024 and beyond.

It’s the right decision at this point for us to separate. We’re still friends, and we’re hoping that this will continue (not least because we have a lot of shared friends that neither of us particularly want to lose) and we still have a love for each other… just not the same kind of love.

I don’t know what the future holds. This isn’t my first rodeo when it comes to divorce, but it is the first time that I’ve reached the mutual decision to separate with someone that I still like, love and respect. Maybe that will make the next few months easier, or maybe it won’t.

One thing I do know though is that, despite being someone that doesn’t really go in for the whole Valentine’s Day thing, having all of these feelings, and writing this post on today of all days is proving more troublesome than I expected.