The end of my marriage of six years has finally arrived with a divorce being granted 13th October has spurred me into thinking about “was it really love in a committed way”.

Now all over I can do the things I really enjoy, like listening to my choice of music turned up loud while I relax in a soothing bath filled with beautiful relaxing fragrances and singing along with Rod Stewart to all those romantic songs, like; I Took One Look At You, There Someone I Am Longing To See, Crazy In Love With You and most importantly Our Love Is Here To Stay.

It wasn’t until I heard this soothing music that I knew that the ‘falling in love’ part of our relationship was missing, sad but true. It took me twelve years in a tempestuous relationship to finally agree to get married, why I still don’t know, perhaps there was some pity attached to my decision as at the time my partner lived in his place and me in mine, however, due to him having a triple by-pass heart surgery and not coping, I suggested he live with me, wrong decision!

I know that I cared for him and wanted to be with him, but complications related to his recreational drug taking prohibited me from making a commitment for all the prior twelve years. Our relationship was an ‘on and off’ one due to his mood swings, which sometimes scared me. However being away from him made me unhappy and it was myself patching up the difficulties and going back to him, big mistake. If it isn’t a good relationship don’t go there especially with a marriage.

Shame that I didn’t take my own advice.

Having being part of someone’s life for nearly 20 years and finding out that part of your life is over is difficult to pick yourself up and start all over again, but I did!

Although this was a difficult time in my life, I never lost my real self. Having such a wonderful array of connections in my family and friends was what helped me to survive.

The hurtful way that my ex-husband gave me an ultimatum of his way or the highway choice. Gave me no alternative than to say, “there is the door”.

Being basically a strong personality there wasn’t any choice as there wasn’t any opportunity for discussion. We were basically too different from each other and he had an extremely complex personality, something that I found too difficult to deal with and he was in denial. My life with him was a constant compromise.

Our relationship was formed on pure physical attraction and it didn’t grow beyond physical. This was the major contributing factor as to why the marriage didn’t last. Over time a good relationship grows beyond the original physical attraction and deepens into an emotional relationship and you grow as a couple, something completely void in our marriage.

Eighteen months on and I am totally at peace with the decision and looking forward to closing this part of my life with a divorce pending and of course a ‘divorce party’. Best of all not having to compromise!

Have you ever had a dream that has come true? Well, I have!

Prior to attending a Family Court hearing on the first day of spring, 1^st September, I had a dream a few nights earlier about not making it to the court on time and missed out on getting a divorce.

Well, this to my horror actually came true, as apparently the distant court system failed me by not doing what they should have done by following through with locating my ex under the guidance of a comprehensive affidavit where, due to not knowing his address at the time of my original lodgement, I applied for dispensation (special consideration), which means the courts seek his whereabouts.

It turns out this is not correct, they don’t do anything, they rely on the applicant, me doing all the work or seeking expensive legal representation to do it on my behalf.

Having already paid out more than $10k on gaining property settlement through two different lawyers, one ineffective and the other extremely effective.   Under the guidance of the second lawyer, I proceeded with filling for a divorce online.

Unfortunately, my attempt to gain the divorce just didn’t happen. The court’s appointed remote Registrar mentioned via his telephone link-up to the local court in Coffs Harbour where everyone in attendance, being other applicants seeking a divorce were all part of my hearing, as I was to theirs.

Here I am in front of a microphone and speaking to a remote person, like the Registrar in Lismore Family Courts. He halted the proceedings for a few moments while he read my two affidavits then replied, “This case is being adjourned until 30 October due to the respondent not being notified of this application for a divorce”

You have got to be kidding I thought, but of course couldn’t say anything. And why hasn’t he been advised, all my paperwork and online payment for this divorce occurred 19 May. There hasn’t been any communication, apart from the Family Law Courts official stamping of my affidavits, between the court and myself advising anything other than an allocated date and time were given to me at the conclusion of my online application and payment and that was more than three months ago.

Obviously, there wasn’t anything I could do other than sit there dumbfounded at the lack of action from the supplied information in the affidavits from this futile Family Law Court system. What if he isn’t located again on the 30 October, do we start this process again?

Pondering on the day’s events I thought where are the personal privacy laws in all these proceedings? I heard before my case 20 or so applicants, three represented by their lawyers, be granted their divorce, their names, family status arrangements were all read out by the court’s office and of course the remote Registrar, whom we couldn’t see but only hear, including the shuffling of every case paperwork, while he got himself familiar with the case in question.

How hard was it for the court’s staff to go to the electoral roll and or Centrelink to locate an address for my ex-husband? Or just notify me that the case was to be been adjourned etc.

Unfortunately, we are just a number in the social service system, without any privacy rights. Due to Privacy Laws I personally can not give out anyone’s personal details without gaining their permission, but the Family Courts can announce in front of total strangers that you are applying for and in other attendees, present granted a divorce.

Personally, I was ready to give up, but friends and family have inspired me forward to take control by acquiring a process server to ensure my ex-gets the ‘Acknowledgement of Service’ and affirming he received the order served upon him with a signed ‘Signature of Acceptance’ advising that 30 October is divorce day.

There isn’t much nowadays that you can’t find, source or prepare using the Internet. All you need is a good Internet connection, a computer, common sense and the ability to research whatever you need to find.

In my case, it was researching and then preparing for an online divorce. My application wasn’t all that complicated as months earlier through the assistance of my family court lawyer and a court-appointed financial mediator a meeting was held where three hours of negotiations took place between my ex-husband, both lawyers and myself. Three hours later we finally achieved a sensible property settlement.

After the property settlement had occurred and my ex-husband received the agreed monies into his bank account he was gone not to be seen or heard from again. How do you find someone who doesn’t want to be found?

Following on from the above property settlement, the time had come to commence the divorce application document online, pay my fee and writing in the section as to the whereabouts of the respondent (ex-husband) “Unknown”. On completion of the Online Divorce Application, a date to appear in court was electronically sent to me together with a reference number. Wonderful, it could all be over soon and I can get back to living a real life without any further obstacles.

Two days later I received a call from a Family Court Clerk advising due to writing the word ‘Unknown’ to the whereabouts of my ex-husband I would now have to complete two affidavits, get both documents witnessed by a Justice of Peace or Lawyer. One of the affidavit documents I had to write down as much as possible on how and what I did regarding trying to locate my ex-husband’s whereabouts.

Not knowing where he was living didn’t bother me greatly as surely his lawyer would know of his whereabouts, no luck there, she wouldn’t assist due to ‘client privacy’. All right I thought then could she accept the divorce application documents on his behalf, still no luck there either. She had no authority to accept such paperwork.

His lawyer being uncooperative didn’t deter me, thank goodness my only form of communication with his lawyer was via emails and obviously this gave me a record that became Annex A to the affidavit. The last communication via email from my ex-husband months earlier became Annex B.

These attachments have shown some examples of how I have tried to locate him, together with several other comments relating to ways that he may be able to be found including using the Internet to Google his name sourced some relevant information for the affidavit.

All of the above has fortunately enabled me to achieve a divorce application electronically using the Internet, except of course the witnessing my signature together with some common sense and wordsmith skills.

The trigger for commencing writing this story was after reading a quote from the deceased actor Robin Williams

“I used to think that worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It’s not.

The worst thing in life is the end up with people that make you feel all alone.

-Robin Williams, Actor”

I can concur with feeling ‘all alone’ in a marriage.

For the past, nearly seven years up until nine months ago when we decided to separate, a decision at the time was very painful for me, but the right thing to do, as our marriage was too difficult when the other party has unresolved issues, which they are not prepared to work on resolving.

To remedy my loneliness’ in our marriage I got involved in community projects, where I felt that I was making a difference in the community. In an attempt to encourage my husband, I tried to get him interested in similar projects which he would enjoy.

Unfortunately, he had no interest in anything much, just wanted me by his side 24 x 7 doing nothing much, other than the occasional coffee at a café’ where he would read the café’s newspaper and I would attend to my iPhone’s emails and messages. Some existence!

When you are an active person, who I am, sitting around the house doing nothing is not the type of existence in my older years, especially when I retired early from senior management positions.

Now nine months on from our separation, I feel more content and certainly not feeling alone.

We all have them ‘friends’ but how many of these can you call really ‘good friends’?

These are the ones that you don’t have to ring every day, month or perhaps years, but they are your true friends.

They are the friends that you can count on one hand and in some cases just a few fingers of one hand. They are the ones that you can ring in the middle of the night for an emergency or just want to talk too and perhaps have a good cry with, but not in the middle of the night after all respect is part of being a good friend.

They will encourage you when you are down, help you celebrate when you have wonderful achievements in your life. They attend all the important events that are part of both of your lives. You can always rely on them, they understand you when no one else does or cares.

These are good friends.

You never take these friendships for granted, as it takes years of nurturing to actually know that some people can be classified as your real friends.

You meet them in all situations and places; it is identifying which friend has the potential to be good friends that counts.

I remember telling one of my daughters when she had the typical ‘friend problem’ at school, “you will go through life and make friends, but it is identifying who are your true friends that actually count and generally that is just a few”.

Who and what is a ‘wonder man’ is he for real, is the only in my dreams or does he just reside in my head and I wish he were beside me? Or is he actually here with me now?

In my minds eye he has a strong interesting personality, loving, energetic, compassionate, good sense of humor and a conversationalist, excellent vision for the future, has the ability to make one feel happy even when life goes off the rails, regardless of where or what you are doing, being that at home, out adventuring or socialising. Not reactive to insignificant matters.

His superpowers can move mountains’ or at least moves furniture around. He has the ability to handle whatever life deals, be that good, bad or horrid. Has an astonishing vision for the future, is positive with the added capacity to acknowledge that there are beautiful people and objects all around.

His visualisation in knowing that with effective planning there is nothing that can not be achieved, even though there will always be challenges in existence, he just takes them in his stride and stays optimistic, not cynical about life.

This is my response to a ‘wonder man’.

Is there such a man in your life?