it is not easier for those who decide

Separation and divorce hurt.

Even if it is the way out of a relationship that has long since ceased to be a relationship... or never was one...

Even if it is a lifeline for those who are fleeing a violent and hostile family environment.

Separation and divorce hurt.

Even when our bodies expand with relief and hope.

Even when your heart whispers ‘you are free’ again...

- Does it hurt less for those who want a divorce?

- Is it easier for those who make the decision to separate?

I don't know how to account for suffering, for the debits and credits of the weight that sinks the soul, for the tightness that constricts the breath...

- Separation and divorce hurt those who decide on them and hurt those who receive them as already decided - says the literature, says my experience in accompanying fathers and mothers in the process of separation or building their co-parenting plan, says my experience of going through a separation process with three young children...

They hurt differently for those on either side of the news: those delivering it and those receiving it.

They hurt, my pain, your pain, our pain...

They hurt.

Perhaps more than the pain felt by those who experience it, the big difference lies in the moment in which they experience it.

On this side of the news, of those who decided and delivered it, there is the pain of a time that has often been lost in the time it takes to understand what one feels and wants, to gather the courage to move forward with the desire (sometimes the urgency) to finish what has already ended inside. Not always capable of the kindness that the moment demands, one loses oneself and falls apart from who one wanted to continue to be...

The time when one was lost was the time when one found oneself, prepared oneself... or, rather, it was the time when one was finding oneself, preparing oneself, separating oneself... in the gerund that was the path...

On the other side of the news, of those who saw it arrive, abrupt, brutal, stupid... the ground flees, turning into a trapdoor... deep in perplexity, anger, rage, sadness... sinking and emerging in the undone reality, those who receive the news count time as short, fast, cruel... a time that did not give time...

It hurts to hurt, it hurts to be hurt...

And on the path to unravelling what we once were, to untying what we will be, bonds are broken, embraces are tied, and we see the pain of those who suffer turned inside out...

...undoing and unravelling what connected us, it will be time to weave how we will connect, in dotted stitches with four hands... invisible threads, tangled balls of yarn, tight knots, stored away, cut...

Sewing, tearing... the misfortune of what we will be remains, announced in this pain... when in the pain of one, the other is felt, when your tears salt my mouth, the sewn fabrics will be the shelter of those we brought into being

 ... when the pain of one comforts the other, when your tears quench my thirst, the shredded fabrics will be the tattered shelter of those we do not see grow up