“It’s like being nibbled to death by ducks.” I read that somewhere — possibly in a Terry Pratchett novel — and it always amused me as a phrase that means “death by tiny degrees”. I never thought I would actually experience it, though.

Divorce in the 21st century requires things to be split up that weren’t an issue in the 20th or before. For example, streaming services; when you’re married, you tend to share streaming services because, after all, you’re married — why shouldn’t you both be on the same service and save money? So in my second marriage my wife and I were together on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and Google, and she also had access to my Paramount+ subscription before profiles were a thing on that service. When we divorced, we continued sharing those services — sharing the content and the cost.

Recently, though, she asked me if we could stop doing that. And it was yet another little nibble in the two-year process of splitting up. Earlier this year, she got engaged to someone she was dating while we were together — a nibble. (We are both polyamorous; she was dating him with my blessing.) Then she moved in with him — another nibble. Now the streaming services — yet another nibble. I’m sure when I see them change their statuses on the social networks to “married”, that’ll be another nibble. If they have a kid together, that’ll be another one.

I still love her. I’m always going to love her. Sure, we had our problems, but I’d always hoped they’d be surmountable. As it turned out, they were not. Doesn’t change my feelings for her.

Still, every time she gets further away, it’s another nibble.

Divorce is hard.