The dreaded D word

This is undoubtedly the hardest post I have ever written. I hope I never have a reason to say that again, either.

A couple of days ago, I got an email at work. It was from Mrs Q at home.

"We need to talk..."

Now usually when she says that, I've done something wrong and she wants to lecture me about it. This time, though, my conscience clear, I called her to find out what was up.

"I only sent you that so that I would have the courage to talk to you later," she said.

Now I was really worried.

That night she asked me for a divorce.

We spent the night talking and crying. At 3:30 a.m., we sort of ran out of things to say and she fell asleep beside me. I dosed, but only fitfully until the alarm went off at 6.

I drove into work as usual, fighting the traffic on auto-pilot, on roads covered with a dusting of slushy snow. When I arrived, I parked the car, got out, walked out of the parking garage, and realised that I couldn't do it. I couldn't go into the office and pretend that all was well, that I could concentrate on Gantt charts, requirements specifications, and conversations about mips, Websphere, DB2 and DASD. I just couldn't. So I got back in my car and drove home; I had nowhere else to go.

I am still in shock. Why didn't I see that coming? What could I have done differently to prevent it from getting this far? What was I going to do now?

Fortunately, she is not being vindictive, and in the 48 hours since her bombshell landed, we have yet to utter an angry word at each other. There are still a million questions to be answered, and no doubt more tears to be shed, but our beloved son has taken the news better than we could have hoped. So far.

Tomorrow, they move out, since junior can't stay with me during the day. I plan to take one more day off to get my head straight, and I will go into the office on Saturday to clear my Inbox and catch up on what's been happening. On Monday, then, I will try to get back into the routine and carry on with my life.

Because life must, somehow, go on.