Thankfully, I’m very close with my siblings. We have a strong connection and we’re close in age too. It feels like we’re friends who happen to live together. Because they’re younger, there are times when they’ll react more emotionally than I might. It’s been a learning curve for all of us: getting through this without the support of our parents, who are busy dealing with their own stuff.

This whole situation has impacted the way I view the relationships in my life. I was with my boyfriend for almost five years, but in December I broke it off. We’d just moved into a new flat together, and three months into that living situation, I realised I didn’t want to settle down, get married and have children with him. Because that would have been the next natural step for him. Things turned bitter with my parents because my mum stayed at home while my dad went out to work, and she ended up feeling like she didn’t have a life. With my ex, I felt I was getting pigeonholed into this traditional relationship trajectory and it scared me. There were other issues, too, of course – things were far from perfect. It’s not like I left somebody that I was in love with.

But it was my parents’ divorce that made me reflect on my own situation and think about why I don’t want to settle down this young – because that’s what my parents did. I definitely don’t want to settle for someone I’m not completely in love with – because that’s also what my parents did. In my next relationship, I want to be a happy, independent person, and not codependent or financially dependent on someone else – because that’s what my parents were like. I suppose if there’s a lesson to be learned from this whole debacle, I’m glad I’ve been able to apply it early on, to make sure I don’t make the same mistakes. I’m hoping the cycle of generational trauma ends here.

As told to Rachel Thompson.

Images: Getty.

The rise of the grey divorce: “Why my parents’ late-life split is tearing me apart”