Hilary came to loathe her husband. So why does she miss him now they're divorced? By Hilary Freeman My flat is dark, silent and still. Nothing has moved since I left. And it strikes me, as it does almost every night, that I am all alone. The bitter irony is that I yearned, even prayed, for this My shiny new key turns in my brand new lock. It's after midnight and I've just returned from a night out with friends, still high on good food, wine and conversation. I'm itching to talk about the funny anecdotes the evening yielded, to describe the yummy dessert, to recount the surreal moment I saw a fox boldly crossing two lanes of traffic and sit down by a bus stop in the middle of London. But my flat is dark, silent and still. The bitter irony is that I yearned, even prayed, for this. In October 2011, after 15 years of marriage, I asked my husband Steve for a divorce. The process took two years. Two long, very stressful and painful years during which, for financial reasons, we were forced to remain living together in our cramped London flat. I slept in the bedroom, he slept on the sofa while our lives were dissected by lawyers and we dragged each other through the courts. The flat was our only asset, the big bone of contention. Neither of us could afford to rent somewhere else while continuing to pay the mortgage. Finally, at the end of this July, it was over. Steve moved out and I could change the locks. Since then I have been surprised by the conflicting emotions that I have felt. I have even had to admit that, at times, I miss him. How is it, you may well ask, that I can miss a man who I had grown to loathe on occasions? But ask any woman who's been through the hell of an acrimonious divorce and you will most likely find they will confess to the same feeling. After all, this is someone with whom you shared the happiest day of your life; the man you have woken up to every morning; the person who knows things about you that you'd never dare share with anyone else. This is no doubt made even harder if you've had children together - sadly, something Steve and I never did. Combine that with the fact, as in my case, that you may have been forced to live with your estranged husband after deciding to split, then it is no wonder it feels like a gaping hole has been left in your life. In these straitened times, having to live together while divorcing is by no means unusual. A 2012 survey by housing charity Shelter found 3.6 million people were forced to remain under the same roof as their partner after separating because of the crippling cost of renting or buying a new home. Relate, the relationship counselling organisation, reported that almost half of its counsellors had seen an increase in the number of unhappy couples forced to stay living together because of the economic downturn. On the day I filed for divorce, I still "loved" my husband. A strange admission, perhaps, but it was the marriage I wanted rid of, not the man. We had been together for 17 years, the majority of my adult life, and though our marriage had not worked out, for reasons that shall remain private, he was still my friend and companion. Though we had been growing apart for years, we didn't argue, so I thought the divorce would be an amicable process. I even believed we might be friends afterwards. Naively, I imagined a poignant and nostalgic goodbye, with a swift division of assets along the way. But it didn't happen like that. Living together while you're divorcing is a bizarre, almost Kafkaesque nightmare: you are legally separated, but still obliged to pass the sugar over breakfast. You're stuck in limbo, prevented from moving forward with your life, but unable (and unwilling) to go back to the way things were. The person you're living with is your enemy and the person who knows you best. So, how do you relate to each other? There's no rule book for this; you just have to muddle through. You can't spend 24 hours a day in a permanent state of animosity: it would kill you. You have to call a truce, at least superficially, to try to live amicably day to day, while, behind the scenes, the pitiless divorce process continues. So, my former husband would offer to make me a cup of tea when he had one because it seemed rude not to. And then, while drinking it, I'd receive a message from my solicitor passing on a nasty email from his lawyer, and wonder, for a split second, if there was arsenic in the tea. Or I'd be in the supermarket and would pick up food I knew he'd like, before remembering we were legally at war. They say love and hate are two sides of the same coin, but we expressed only indifference. There was no name-calling or screaming rows, just a tense atmosphere pregnant with years of unspoken regret, mistrust, anger and disappointment. Despite this, we'd watch TV together, chat about the news, even laugh at each other's jokes. Yet our lives outside the flat in North London were totally separate. Once we travelled on the same train to a mutual friend's party. He sat in a different carriage and didn't speak to me all night. Sometimes, force of habit meant we accidentally called each other "darling" or "babes" because using each other's Christian names felt weird after 15 years of affectionate nicknames (though not half as weird as referring to each other as "the petitioner" and the "respondent" in court). The words would stick in our throats, a poignant reminder of what used to be. Living like this somehow became normal - but it was utterly toxic. And yes, by the end, that lingering love I'd felt had soured into moments when I hated Steve - and I know he felt the same way. And then, one day, the judge made a ruling and it was over. Twenty-one months after it began, when I finally held the decree absolute in my hand, I looked at my now former husband and he looked through me. I felt only emptiness and sorrow. Hilary with ex-husband, Steve. Their wedding took place at the London Palladium theatre Then, after a horrible, protracted moving out process, which saw the flat turned upside down as we disentangled our possessions, he was gone. I'd expected to feel relieved, even celebratory, but I didn't. I felt like someone - or something - had died. However much you may have wanted to divorce, however acrimonious the process, however many times you wished your partner was out of your life for ever, the end of a marriage is still a bereavement. "Though no one has actually died, you have lost something huge," says Christine Northam, a counsellor for Relate. The framework to your life has changed, which is why you feel so wretched at the end of a divorce. You feel detached, disorganised and that you don't belong anywhere. With every change we make in life there is loss and it can take a long time to recover from this. After the initial grieving period came a sort of euphoria. It manifested itself in a sudden burst of energy that saw me buzzing around the flat for hours at a time, clearing out the junk, cleaning and tidying. I replaced the things my former husband had taken with him, such as the toaster and the hall mirror, rearranged the furniture, donated boxes of possessions to the charity shop and put my old clothes and shoes on eBay. Part of it, I think, was an urge to nest, to make the flat my own. But I also think I was keeping myself busy because when you're busy, you don't have time to think. I remember walking past the charity shop one day and seeing my wedding shoes in the window, on sale for £15. I burst into tears. They were the most uncomfortable shoes I'd ever owned and gave me terrible blisters. But seeing them for sale, knowing I'd never walk in them again, literally and metaphorically, felt deeply symbolic. It was the moment I accepted my old life was over. Like many people of my generation, I had gone straight from living with my parents to university, where I had shared various flats with friends, to cohabiting with a boyfriend, to living with friends again, to cohabiting with the boyfriend who became my husband. Now, at the age of 42, I am living alone for the first time in my life. There are many upsides to solo living: I can watch The X Factor without being subjected to Steve's complaints about the parlous state of the music industry; and I don't have to endure the Grand Prix.I don't have to deal with his mess or trip over his guitars. I can spread my things all over the flat or talk on the phone half the night. I can even eat cereal for dinner. Hilary's new partner, Mickael, will soon be moving to London to live with her But I won't deny that I often miss Steve's company. I work from home so, unless I have a work event or social plans, I am alone 24 hours a day, sometimes for several days at a time. Suddenly, I understand how my 95-year-old grandma feels. My new partner, Mickael, lives in France, so we see each other only every couple of months. Most of my friends and family are an hour away by Tube, and everyone has a busy life. Those with children can seldom meet up, and often cancel if a child is ill or if they can't get a babysitter. And, anyway, I have neither the time, energy nor the money to go out every night. Living alone has proved what I already knew: I'm an extrovert who loves company. Seeing a film or watching a TV programme doesn't feel complete unless I can dissect it with someone afterwards. And that person was usually Steve. I find myself talking aloud to myself and I put the radio or TV on in every room I enter, just to break the silence. Cooking elaborate meals just for me feels like too much trouble, so I'll have scrambled eggs or beans on toast for dinner. While I'll never regret getting divorced, I can't wipe out those 15 years I spent with Steve. I can't pretend he didn't have a huge influence on the person I've become. Besides, there are echoes of him everywhere. When a storm is coming, I still hear him saying "It's black over Bill's mother's" - an old East Midlands phrase he learned in childhood. When I watch Mad Men on TV, I remember how much he loved it. I miss his encyclopedic knowledge of music and his vast CD collection. I hardly have any CDs of my own because he had practically everything ever recorded. Practically, it's hard, too. When the men from the charity shop came to pick up my donations a couple of weeks ago, I managed to lock myself out of the flat, in my slippers, without my phone and purse. I hadn't had the chance to give anyone a set of spare keys, so I had to call a locksmith. I'm afraid of spiders, so the other day, when I came across a huge one in the bathroom, I had no choice but to deal with it myself. I've had to learn how to repressurise the boiler, screw together flat-pack furniture and change lightbulbs with no one to hold the rickety chair. Yes, it's good to become more independent and to learn to do these things, but they don't come naturally to me. Almost eight million people in Britain live alone and that number is increasing. I am lucky. Unlike my grandma, I won't be living alone for ever. Mickael will soon be moving to London to live with me and I'll once again be able to have a shared life. We have waited a long time to be together and he has been incredibly patient and understanding. He even understands and accepts that I have been grieving for my marriage. Ultimately, I'm glad I've had this time of living alone. It's taught me a lot about myself and given me the chance to reclaim my identity. I can't wait to start my new life with Mickael. But I also know that the ghosts of my divorce will linger for a long time.