I don’t come from a large family, nor do I come from a particularly close family. Growing up, my two sisters and my parents and I held close bonds for sure but the family beyond that, which involved aunts, uncles and cousins held bonds I would describe as loose, fragmented and even jagged. I recall the relationships between family members as superficial and even strained. And that’s for reasons I won’t delve into this morning.

Personally, I felt very close to my gramma as a child and even young adult but she passed away when I was 21. And once she and my grampa were gone, the family suppers on the big holidays were no more, although I’m not sure anybody minded.

My dad’s oldest sister lived provinces away and so we only saw her on rare occasions during my childhood. I never felt particularly close to her as a child, but as my sisters and I got older she did make a point of spending time with us. My older sister and I made the trip out west on several occasions, at her invite, to stay with her and my uncle in the foothills of the mountains at their beautiful home.

She made sure our visits were filled with little adventures and it wasn’t long before I began to really look up to her. I loved her outlook on life and her positivity. In high school my older sister lived with her for a summer and my aunt hooked her up with a couple of part time jobs. The following summer it was my turn. I moved in with my aunt and uncle for two months and worked and spent my money as fast as I earned. I loved my time there, loved being near a large city. They took me over the border to Montana for a weekend and I felt that this was the lifestyle I needed to live. I even tried to convince my parents that I should finish off high school out there and not return home, they said absolutely not.

By this point my aunt’s influence had left a mark on me, and that’s largely understating it. She was everything the rest of my family was not. And all the things I wanted to be.

And from then on we stayed more in touch and she became an important person in my life. Fast forward ten years. I’m unhappily married with three kids. I’m miserable. The disjoint, (in my mind) is caused by an addiction (not mine). We’d tried counselling. He’d tried giving up what he was addicted to. But things were just not working out. I’d been unhappy for years and I felt the bonds that had been broken very early on in the marriage could never be repaired. However, I felt stuck. I didn’t know what to do or how to do it.

I took being married seriously, we had been married in a church. I felt embarrassed that all those people who witnessed us saying our vows would now be hearing we had broken those vows. Also, he was very angry and opposed to us parting ways and told me if I was unhappy then it was on me to do the leaving.

I had not discussed any of this with my parents. They had no idea. They knew he drank a lot, too much in fact. And even before we were married, his drinking caused problems between my parents and I. And even a rift that saw me not speak to them for a few months, just because I was angry at them for saying the things they did, about him. Foolishly at that point, I’d felt I was madly in love with him and he could do no wrong. But they were right.

So they had an idea I think, that things were not perfect in my marriage but on the outside I probably seemed happy and we had three beautiful kids and life just flows on. And so they got along well with him and accepted him as their son in law.

Now I had to tell them that I in fact, was not happy. I was miserable. And I didn’t know how. They had been happily married for decades. I felt they could not possibly understand wanting to leave a marriage, break up a family. I was scared they would judge me, maybe not take my side. I was sure that if I told them how unhappy I was, their response would be “you made your bed, you can lay in it”.

So when I got to the point where I needed to make a move and end my marriage, I did not call them. I called my aunt. And though it probably came as a huge shock to her, she handled it as though I was calling to say my lasagna recipe was a disappointment.

While I was in tears and crying so hard I could barely talk, she was calm and sincere and helped guide me through what needed to be done. And most importantly, she encouraged me to tell my parents. Which in my eyes, was the biggest hurdle of all. She reassured me that they would understand, that they would want to know and would want to help me. Thanks to her guidance and support that day on the phone, I did call my parents. She was right, they were supportive. And they had my back as I made the life altering move to end my marriage.

I’m so grateful to my aunt for many things but especially that phone call, in that particular moment and her guiding hand on one of the worst days of my life.