Magazine - People

Richard Green has been a member of Wikivorce for more than a year. He told us his experience of Self Representation in his divorce process:

This year, for the first time at Wikivorce, special awards will go out to those of its members who have made an outstanding contribution to its community.

For this issue, our Editors interviewed Wikivorce member Sarah-Jane Wood, on her experience of the divorce process:

Introducing Professor Carrie Paechter Goldsmiths, University of London who is a longstanding Wikivorce member. Carrie has a very special project in mind and tells Wikizine all about it: It started with my divorce…

Brian Inkster, of Inksters Solicitors, and his wife, Nicola Walls (an Architect with Page \ Park) are going to Argentina in November to assist with the building of homes for families living in poverty. Working for the charity Habitat for Humanity they will be building alongside other volunteers and with 'stakeholder' families who will eventually live in the houses.

The barriers you put up, well constructed, impenetrable and as strong as iron, protect you from the hurt and disassociate you from the pain. Suzy writes a letter to an ex-partner: You separate yourself from others who love you with such adeptness that it’s hard not to be impressed - pulling back your emotional connection from them and winding it in like a rope to stash in the hold, so that you no longer need to see or feel anything that once connected you to them.

Our reader was 27 when she married her 22 year old husband; they separated after two and a half years. During that time, amongst the many issues a marriage can bring, she had to cope with her new husband’s cross-dressing proclivity. In the following interview, our reader talks frankly about her experience of this very challenging topic:

Divorce Coach Rhiannon Ford responds to a request from a mother feeling bullied by her ex husband, who demands to see more of their young child via angry solicitor’s letters.

Wikivorce's very own Andy Hawkes tells us his experience of marriage, divorce... and style! As a guy who is always ribbed about his sexuality from”wikipeeps” (I’m very heterosexual by the way!) I think I must be the only straight guy in the world who likes clothes shopping! 

What happens when love in a foreign country goes wrong? At first he was a romantic stranger with sultry accent that made you go weak at the knees. You were a young, successful career woman ,ready to be seduced just like any “femme fatale’ should be. Oh this is so like the movies. Your friends all envious at your international jetset lifestyle, flipping between countries just to sneak a few passionate moments with your beau. Flowers. Chocolates. Life’s a peach!

Wikivorce member Roger tells us about his ordeal of taking his son on holiday, during a difficult divorce. My ex stopped contact with my son when my partner and her children aged (12, 10 and 5 at the time) moved in with me, (in her words... ‘as soon as she moves in with her kids I will stop contact’) which she duly did. Me and my partner had been together a while but decided that paying for two homes was silly.

'Love Lose Live' is a window on divorce and family breakdown in our time. It is the mad, sad, bad and hilarious story of the Bailey family’s separation. We witness the grief, but also the recovery and moving on to new lives.

In a thought-provoking Afterword, Mary Banham-Hall explains with clarity and insight the different stages of loss and grief which follow separation. As a highly experienced family lawyer and mediator, she advocates resolution processes which focus on the needs of the whole family.