How to navigate separation in the country

“Knowing he could easily find out where you are and that you have limited privacy was really challenging,” she says. “My car could be parked outside the local gym, counsellor or the solicitor’s office, a restaurant, the pub or a friend’s place and he would know about it. At times I’ve had to hide my car to ensure he doesn’t know where I am.”

When Suze split up with her husband five years ago, she experienced firsthand the challenges faced by many separating couples who live in regional areas. Her small coastal village was the type of place where everyone knew one another’s business. In Suze’s case, her partner was a well-connected local lad, so she was understandably worried that the commun­ity’s loyalty would stay with him. And there are other concerns that can make splitting up in the country harder than in the city: higher rates of violence and access to weapons; fewer legal and social services; entrenched social norms that mean people keep silent on domestic violence; and sometimes complex financial and property matters.

For Suze it meant that even simple things became complicated. When she went to see her solicitor, she avoided the main street. It sounds like a bad country and western song, but it was true. She would park around the back, near the gym, before walking the long way around. Otherwise, Suze knew her ex would have been told about her meeting before it even finished. Elements of country life that were once positive — the community, the small-town vibe — turned sour for the 47-year-old senior nurse and mother of two.

Whether you reside under city lights or far from the madding crowd, falling out of love can be brutal. It is also very common. About three out of every 10 Australians live in a regional area and almost one in 500 people divorce each year. Many of the challenges are much the same no matter where you live. Common to all postcodes are experiences of family violence, a lack of support, financial hardship, and encountering social and familial pressure to stay. In addition, however, challenges unique to a regional or rural separation stem from geographical isolation and the intimacy of lives shared. The things you loved about your small town — the closeness, the networks — can all of a sudden work against you.

“My husband was abusive and he frequently yelled at me in front of the children,” she says. “Twice he was physically violent. I didn’t take out a New South Wales Apprehended Domestic Violence Order [ADVO, also known as an intervention order] as I was too scared it would make him even angrier.”

Five years on, the former couple have recently resolved their legal proceedings over parenting matters. Suze often travelled to Canberra from regional New South Wales for court hearings and family report interviews. Those overnight trips cost precious time and money for a single parent working part time. She thinks the drawn-out legal proceedings was another way her ex tried to control the relationship. He could afford it financially; she could not.

Separation impacts Suze’s day-to-day life in many ways, including socially. “Being at the local pub with friends, when my ex turns up with his girlfriend I always feel so uncom­fortable and want to leave, but I’m determined not to act intimidated,” she says. “I think if we lived in the city, we would have had separate friends, but in a small town, nothing seems to be separate.”

In the regions, familial expectations and social codes mixed with rural stoicism often add pressure for separating partners. Lives in regional towns tend to be interconnected.

A study from the Australian Institute of Family Studies found that country residents were more likely than city folk to seek help and support from their friends and family, instead of formal services. This can be a positive aspect of life in the country, but when partners are going through a separation, the trauma can divide more than the couple.

In some small towns there might be an expectation that family members will keep things quiet. There could be shame or stigma if people speak up. Looking for professional advice or talking to others outside the family unit could be perceived as a betrayal or exposing the family to the risk of social scrutiny and even ridicule. Victorian barrister Nicholas Kanarev says, “Hanging out the dirty laundry can be considered poor form. And if you’re the one who came to the region from somewhere else — the outsider — the social code can be especially strong.”

“Break ups can divide the entire family, and extended family and friends,” he says. “If you’ve moved into the husband or wife’s family town for example, you risk being seen at fault by locals simply because ‘we know the family’ and not you. Even after 20 years of living there. Sometimes one party has to move towns to a new place to find acceptance and a fresh start.”

This is what happened for Carolyn*. She met her former husband Andrew when they were living in Hobart when she was in her 20s. Later they chose to chase the sun and moved to the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales. While Andrew ran a business, Carolyn decided to quit her job as a nurse when their son was born with special needs. Another son was born two years later. The business prospered and Andrew retired young.

Then came a bolt from the blue for Carolyn. In 2011 Andrew told her that he intended to go travelling and would be away for several years. He hoped this wouldn’t be the end of their marriage and that she would wait for his return. Carolyn didn’t agree.

Once Andrew left, and with the children now old enough to make their own way in the world, Carolyn looked around her adopted regional community and felt very alone. “I had been feeling isolated and lonely for years and felt a strong need to return home to Tasmania and be near family while I healed from the grief of the marriage breakdown,” she says. “I hadn’t really felt comfortable to share the full anger and helplessness I was suffering to my local friends. I think it was out of a misplaced sense of loyalty to Andrew. When I looked around, I really had no friends that were separate from him.”

Barrister Kim Southey had her eyes opened to the difficulties of these settlements as a solicitor and barrister in country Victoria and Melbourne over the past 13 years. She acknowledges the challenges for separating parents due to fewer services being available. Children’s supervision services or other social support programs could be full or nonexistent in some regional areas. There may only be a few local psychologists to choose from, if any. Drug and alcohol services, too, can be limited. These complications add time, cost and complexity to the existing emotional toll of the breakup. (Ironically, Southey observes that during the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s the city services that closed while regional services remained accessible.)

The same challenges exist when accessing services to help if there is family violence, which study after study suggests is more common in regional areas. The Personal Safety Survey from the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2013 found that about one in five women outside capital cities (21 per cent) had experienced violence from their partner, compared to 15 per cent of women in a capital city. The Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health also found women in rural, regional and remote areas were more likely to experience domestic violence over their lifetime than in the cities.

An Australian Institute of Family Studies 2015 report found that country victims can have greater difficulty accessing support due to a lack of local services and geographical isolation, and social challenges in reporting the violence. There are many historical relationships in small towns that permeate the local authorities and services. For instance, it may be tough for the local counsellor to accept that her old school mate from 20 years ago is violent behind closed doors. Victims may also have greater difficulty identifying intimate partner violence that is non-physical (such as control, coercion, emotional and financial abuse).

Nicholas Kanarev says finding professional advice for each party can be a challenge. “A key issue for separating couples in regional areas is finding a good family law solicitor,” he says. “It can be hard to find an independent lawyer in country towns because there may only be one or two solicitors and it is likely that the solicitor would have worked for one or either party before.”

And then there are the money issues. Separations are often complicated by finances and these can be even more enmeshed in the country. How will the family farm be divided? Then there are additional businesses, water rights, farm machinery, tools, sheds and infrastructure; maybe other properties as well. Family trusts and companies. Self-managed super funds. How do you deal with them? And who gets to stay on the property? All these issues have to be resolved.

“How to achieve a fair and equitable property settlement where there is a farm is one of the biggest challenges for the courts, especially if it has been in the family for generations,” says Kim Southey. She has learned all about breeding cattle, artificial insemination, plant and equipment, and the applications of farm machinery during her time at the family law courts. But what has struck her most is the complexity of property matters in the regions.

“Sometimes the property is worth the land value only, sometimes there is a cash component, but you can’t always find it. And where the family farm is still in the names of the parents, then you would have to run a constructive trust argument which can be challenging. Courts are famously very reluctant to sell up family farms that have been owned for generations. They’ll only do it as a last resort.”

Where farms are involved in a separation, or any other sort of family business for that matter, separating can mean not only finding somewhere else to live but sometimes a new livelihood. Walking away from what you have been building for years can be heartbreaking. The impact of these changes will be felt not only by the separating couple but also by any children they may have. At other times, keeping the business or staying on the farm brings its own challenges and loneliness. Either way, a lifetime of building dreams together can change direction overnight and take a long time to unravel.

“Going through the family law process took three years of my life,” Bill says. “I treated it like a full-time job.” In the end, he let go his lawyer, though his wife retained hers. He was confident to self-represent and committed to negotiating a fair outcome, which they did over a round-table mediation.

Looking back, Bill remains positive. He tells his mates over a beer at the pub to “come up with an exit strategy and discuss it” long before a relationship hits the rocks. Speaking to him, you get the feeling he still misses the woman who lived on the farm around the corner from him growing up, who became his wife after meeting many years ago at a Young Farmers dance. “I tell people there’s a hard way to separate and there’s a really hard way. There’s no easy way,” says Bill. “Mine was a happy ending, as much as that’s possible. We were lucky.”

There are countless stories of separation in our regions, of love and loss; more than can be told here. The common thread is connection to the land and community: the regional networks that speak to a greater sense of self.

For Suze, her country town ties remain intact; she won’t consider leaving until the children finish school. All their friends and networks are there, the children are happy and her work is guaranteed. It was her husband who finally moved away: only to the next town, but it put enough distance between them to give her breathing space. Carolyn’s enjoying the simple life with her family after completing her property settlement and she finally feels free to start travelling again. She moved towns and, two years on, is still very happy with that decision. For Bill, his only regrets are the challenges the separation created for the family. So, he is staying put, building his businesses, working the land and reconnecting with his grandchildren.

Wherever you live, the loss of love in all its forms can sting. In our regions though, the challenges are often greater than just walking out the door. But greater too can be the gains. Imagining a life where you don’t have to worry about where you park your car may be just the start.

Katherine Beard is a senior lawyer and writer living in Bendigo, Victoria.