As the tiny diamond falls out of my engagement ring, lost, is it a sign?

As the kids get older The Chap and I are increasingly living separate lives, publicly. All marriages evolve. The key is to evolve with them

As the kids get older The Chap and I are increasingly living separate lives.

Well that didn’t last. The diamond’s gone. Who knows when it disappeared; days, weeks, months ago. The lone tiny gem in the engagement ring was held snugly within its band until it fell out somehow amid the great tumble of life; now there’s a stark hole through to skin where the glint and glister should be. Mortified. The ring was bought with The Chap 25 years ago on a whim, during the washing cycle at our local London laundromat. How could I be so careless? Was this a metaphor for our marriage?

And just the other day someone was asking if we were “OK”, mock concern curdling the edges of their mouth. ’Tis the season. So many couples are splitting up. Kids leaving homes, dwellings suddenly rattly with emptiness, family life sliding into fresh phases; for some in great fury, or boredom, or irritation, as the next era of coupledom yowled before them. A divorced girlfriend refers to her “Wasband”, and frankly there’s a lot of them out there. My chap? The Isband?

We never even managed a honeymoon. That also went missing in life’s great tumble. Too busy and too poor at the time to get onto it; we’re still waiting. Then I noticed recently something else. The wedding band next to the engagement ring has cracked. It’s no longer a solid circle; it’s a shape almost touching, yet not quite. Right. Everything falling apart.

But is it? The ballad of the parenting is a vast joint project here and we’re still in the thick of it; our youngest is only in Year Seven. Yet over 26 years of wedded life, together-ship has morphed: as the kids get older The Chap and I are increasingly living separate lives, publicly. The Chap does his thing, I do mine. By mutual agreement. Because he’s spent years being dragged from pillar to post on crammed weekends of friend catch-ups and kids’ birthdays and sport activities and he doesn’t have to anymore, he’s free. So am I. He’s got his own thing going on, and so do I.

With girlfriends. Like a single chick revelling in her best (post-menopausal) life, I’m suddenly seizing it all: Ecstatic Dancing (yep, it’s a thing), theatre, films, concerts, pickleball. The Chap and I sat down and agreed on this new way and it’s bliss for us both, because we trust. To let each other go. It’s like we can settle into who we want to be, finally. Separately. For years we existed in servitude to the childrens’ needs. But now we’re coming out the other side. Re-finding our old selves.

Why does this work? Because we always regroup in the solid centre of the family home. We’ve always maintained separate bank accounts and now it’s social lives too; the great coming together is for children and home. We live lives not entwined but in tandem as we keep various plates of parenthood spinning in the air. It’s a rhythm of, If you do this, I’ll do that; if you do school lunches I’ll do the soccer run. It has evolved into 50/50 parenting where we both muck in equally, passing the baton without pushback.

Can’t remember the last argument. Honestly, what’s the point? Talking it through is much more effective. The Chap has taught me that a light heart is a wonderful armour for living; no one makes me laugh like he does. Frankly, there could be no one else. If I didn’t have him I’d want no other. He holds my heart hostage with his attentiveness, calm and kindness. He’s the greatest gift in my life.

The rings are broken, the diamond vanished, but those bands aren’t coming off; are almost impossible to get off. They feel strong on the hand and won’t be repaired. For like the vulnerabilities and cracks of Japan’s Wabi-sabi philosophy they’re even more beautiful now, with their worn-away imperfections reflecting the vast, messy, distracted and delicious tumult of family life.