The wedding anniversary. That’s what it will always be – even if we are now divorced and our wedding as a legal entity is over.

It doesn’t hurt as much as the shock of receiving the final divorce earlier this week, yet the timing of the completion of our divorce only a few days ahead of our wedding anniversary makes this emotionally complicated, to say the least.

I still worry about my now ex. I still care very deeply for him, so I was starting to worry when he didn’t reply to anything I messaged him since the divorce earlier in the week.

He has replied now. What he said somehow stung. I think I weas reading an accusation that was, perhaps, not anywhere except in my own head.

Even last year, before he asked to move out later that summer, we made some attempts to celebrate it. Perhaps the band on the Titanic had a better idea of what was happening to them than either my ex or myself did.

How do you mark a day that’s meaning has now been lost?

It still retains its original meaning for me: a celebration of love between two men, shared and witnessed between their friends and families.

Mum read a quote from Stardust during our wedding ceremony. She cried while reading it because she knew how much we loved each other.

You know when I said I knew little about love? That wasn’t true. I know a lot about love. I’ve seen it, centuries and centuries of it, and it was the only thing that made watching your world bearable. All those wars. Pain, lies, hate… It made me want to turn away and never look down again. But when I see the way that mankind loves… You could search to the furthest reaches of the universe and never find anything more beautiful.

Stardust (film) 2007

There were people there that we both loved who aren’t with us any more, either through death or dispute. For my ex, visiting our wedding day in his memory is full of pain because of the separation between him and his children than came about later. For me there is a sweetness because of the part that my family took in it. Thank you dad for videoing it for us!

But the friends and family weren’t what was important back then – the day would have meant just as much if it had just been the two of us on a desert island.

It was about love and trying to make a relationship work that was always difficult and stressful – but always had true love.

That is what I grieve most.