Here is the latest instalment of Divorce Diaries , a series exploring the stories behind how marriages end and what happens next. Rarotonga or Fiji: that was the biggest thing Casey had on her mind last June. She was six months pregnant, and she and her husband were keen to have a babymoon – a last little holiday together as a twosome, and, a chance to get away from the depths of winter.
They booked for the last two weeks of the month, right before school holidays hit – there was surely going to be a lot of planning holidays around those in the not too distant future – but not before Casey had gone back and forth numerous times on the destination and planned every detail meticulously. "I spent all this time researching resorts and the healthcare systems of both," says Casey. "Just in case something did happen! I asked my midwife a million questions about it.
She must have been so annoyed by me and all my holiday questions." Eventually Casey chose Fiji – a resort on the coral coast ("I didn't want to be too far from the hospital or airport!") that had great ratings and reviews, and had been recommended by friends. She planned for every possible situation she may find herself in, and packed a week in advance, with her bulging bag full of different snacks and medications, just in case.
But of all the possibilities she armed herself for on the babymoon, there was one she had not planned for: her husband not being there. Out of the blue, two days before they were due to fly out, he dropped the news that a big case had landed in his lap and he was now too busy to take the holiday. "I thought he was joking," says Casey.
"It seemed insane, but he apologised, said he was so upset about it, but couldn't change the situation. He suggested we go later, but I didn't want to be flying in my third trimester." Her husband, Chris, then said he would pay to have the ticket changed to someone else, if she still wanted to go.
"I was so upset," she says. "I couldn't cancel the trip and get a refund, so, as much as I didn't want to go without him, I didn't want to waste it." Luckily, Casey's younger sister Meg said she could get time off at late notice and was more than happy to go with her – especially as she was been gifted a free holiday.
Casey said that by the time she was leaving, she felt guilty and bad for her husband that he couldn't join her. "He told me not to worry and that if I went and loved it and felt all good about it that we could look at going back just the two of us when things had calmed down in about a month's time," she says. Casey tried to enjoy herself – which wasn't too difficult at all.
She and Meg are very close, so as soon as they met up at the airport, she instantly felt calmer and happier. She wondered how it was going to go sharing a bed with Meg at the accommodation they'd booked and hoped it wouldn't annoy her too much that she was awake half the night tossing and turning, with weird pregnancy aches and niggles. But, when they checked in, the staff gave her keys to a different room to what they'd booked – a fancier, two-bedroom suite.
"I am too honest and said it wasn't what we'd booked and paid for," says Casey. "But they said that we'd paid for an upgrade – I thought it was so sweet that Chris did that." For five days and four nights, Casey and Meg soaked up the sun, drinking mocktails, swimming, napping and reading books.
Casey felt like it was just what she'd needed. But, of course, she still wished she'd been able to spend it with her husband. When they arrived back in New Zealand, they headed to Meg's car – she'd driven in and so was happy to drive Casey back home, especially as it was late at night.
Feeling warm in her happy little holiday bubble, Casey looked forward to coming home to her husband. Except, when she got home, things were a lot different to what she'd expected. The house immediately looked and felt different.
Her sister dropped her suitcase in the entrance, gave her a hug and left. Casey called out to her husband that she was home, took off her jacket and opened the closet in the hallway to put it away. The closet looked different – then she realised that none of her husband's things were in it.
"At first I figured that he must have been doing some clearing out or dry-cleaning," she says. "Maybe he was having some sort of nesting phase himself." But then her husband appeared , looking sheepish.
He didn't come in for a hug. "I walked into the lounge where he was and noticed that a few things were missing, or the furniture had been moved around," she says. "He looked different – nervous maybe.
He looked really stern." Suddenly he said the words Casey could never have expected. "He said he was very sorry and there was no easy way to say this, but he no longer wanted to be married to me, that he wasn't ready to be a father and while he would support me and the new baby, it would be from a distance and not as my partner," she says – beginning to cry as she remembers the moment her life suddenly changed.
"I was in total shock," says Casey. "Really surprisingly, I didn't have any emotion. I was like a robot.
I remember thinking, 'stay calm for the baby'. "And then I called Meg back and told her that she better come back to the house. Chris had left me and I would need her support.
She started screaming on the other end of the phone, so I hung up." Chris said it would be best if he left before Meg got there, and that he'd moved his belongings out already – that he'd left a lot of their joint property for her to have in the house and they could work out the finer details down the track when the baby was a bit older. "It was a very strange transactional kind of conversation," she says.
"He left as Meg was just pulling in – she got out of the car and started pounding on his car, screaming at him. I had to get her to come inside." Casey remembers pouring her sister a glass of wine and getting her tissues.
"I felt completely numb," she says. "I wasn't processing anything." In fact, Casey says it wasn't until her baby boy was born that it hit her – three months later.
"I switched off all my emotion somehow," she says. "I just didn't have the headspace for it. I didn't want to face it and get too upset and somehow hurt the baby or go into premature labour or something.
"So I treated everything as a job to do and worked my way through it – both at my job in my real life and then when I came home, just busying myself with tasks." Casey didn't even tell her workplace or most of her friends what had happened. "Then it hit me when I was in labour," she says.
Her mum and two sisters were with her and supported her throughout the whole thing. "I suddenly realised that I was alone, and that I was going to be doing every part of raising this baby, alone," she says. "It felt primal and raw and I felt every emotion all at once.
It was horrible. I was screaming – and not from the physical pain, but from what had happened. The nurses and midwife kept coming to check that the epidural was working!" She says another completely transformative moment happened again, many hours later when her son was handed to her.
"I needed an emergency c-section in the end, so Mum was with me, rubbing my shoulder as it was happening," says Casey. "I was just crying and crying. Then, mum came back over with the baby and she nuzzled his head up to mine.
" Casey says she felt a new feeling wash over her. "I had someone who was depending on me," she says. "I had to do my best for this little boy.
It didn't fix anything, but it made me feel calmer. I had a brand new love in my life." Casey's mother took a month off work and moved in to be with her and her grandson while she recovered from the birth.
Casey's two sisters also tag-teamed living with her over the next year so she was never alone for long. "I don't know what I would have done without them," says Casey. "I was swinging – well, I still am – from feeling like a numb robot , to feeling all these emotions, to feeling powerful and strong.
Therapy has helped too." Casey says that now, a year on, she still feels bewildered by what happened and how quickly her circumstances have changed. "I never, ever imagined I would be a solo mum, especially not from birth on," says Casey.
She and her estranged husband have had very little communication, and what they have had has been very formal. He hasn't given Casey much in the way of an explanation as to what has happened, except for just saying that he'd realised that he wasn't ready to be a father. "One thing that made me so mad is he said he thought doing it like that, after the babymoon holiday was the best idea because I would be all rested and calm," she says.
"It just seems so cruel and, kind of overly dramatic to me though." Casey says she has good days and bad days, but her love for her son has been massive and carries her through. "It's true what people say about it just opening up this whole new kind of love inside of you," she says.
"Of course, I wish that I was doing this with someone I loved and who loved me back, and that we could share in this feeling together, but, at least I'm the lucky one in this situation. He's missing out on something so beautiful." This article was originally published on Capsule , and is republished here with permission.
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