By cath kelly
Date: 2 November 1997

miss

The War Of The Roses - It Could Happen To You

We all laughed and cried with the Roses as they went through their painfully 
comic divorce proceedings. But take it from someone who knows, it could happen 
to anyone,even you!!

What started life as a simple and amicable arrangement to separate for my 
husband and I has turned into a real life version of the War Of The Roses. 
And it is happening every day in every country around the world.

What happens when love goes wrong? Why is it that we end up behaving like 
two movie stars acting out a carefully wrought script?

In my case it was the involvement of "well-meaning" friends and neighbours. 
People who had never been a fly on the wall. People who had never really 
looked or listened to what was happening inside our lives. People who felt 
that the poor husband had been so hard done by, when his wife asked him to 
leave the family home. 

These people stirred ideas and notions in his head that have finally sent 
him over the edge. We have been through the days of nails in tyres, nocturnal 
wanderings, missing mail and all manner of noises and bumps in the night. The 
manic phone calls have subsided, but I still jump when the phone rings at odd 
hours of the day or night.

Love, a powerful emotion. Capable of taking us to great highs and equally 
capable of dropping us into great lows. 

So where do we go from here?

Simple. The place we wished to avoid when all was amicable. The Family Law 
Court and then on to the Bankruptcy Court, that’s where. With any chance of 
at least remaining distant friends out the window because the anger and 
resentment this has brought will never go unfelt.

As we both line the pockets of our legal counsel, we listen and smile as 
they chat to their spouses (obviously happily married) about the their latest 
home redecoration project. And slowly we are both losing our wealth, in a 
battle that will leave us back where we started. With the share in the joint 
property that we deserve. There is nothing to be gained, and a lot to be lost.

What a waste of time and effort. What a waste of money. What an enormous waste 
of emotion.

And not nearly as funny as the movie would have us believe.