Yes to Marriage Equality

I've just written about our wedding on April 9 and described what a beautiful and perfect day it was. I had married before, 19 years ago. It was an unhappy marriage that I tried for many years to fix before coming to accept, with the support of many people around me and the help of Women's Aid, that staying married would destroy my life and likely those of my children. The separation happened four years ago and the horrendous task of divorcing took a few years more.I am forever grateful to the people who helped the children and me through that time. I am indebted to all those who over the years, campaigned to change the definition of marriage and make divorce legal. They ensured that children receive the protections they deserve and their efforts meant that I could be free from a terrible situation and, as a person who'd had to stop paid work to mind the children, was not left destitute.For years after the separation I was a single mother of three. For one of those years, my sister lived with us and for all of them, all members of my family and our friends, have been there for us providing practical and emotional support when we needed it. We never stopped being a family even though we did not fit the proscribed model of a nuclear family. I've often heard campaigners against equal marriage bang on about how children deserve a mother and a father. What children need, as I have discovered, is to be free from abusive situations and to have access to people around them who l...

Source: The Voyage - April 18, 2015 Category: Child Development Source Type: blogs