It was New Year’s Eve and we were dancing like sugared-up 12-year-olds on the kids’ trampoline. At the stroke of midnight, we loudly, drunkenly, declared our love for each other.

This was typical of our usual get-togethers. In fact, we called ourselves the Usuals, as in the Usual Suspects: six couples, all best friends since before Y2K was a thing.

Divorce can have a major impact on long-term friendship groups.Credit: Shutterstock

For close to three decades, we did everything together. Camping trips when the kids were little, then impromptu weekends away when they were old enough to leave at home. Raucous slide nights, teary anniversaries, zero birthdays (30, 40 …) drop-in dinners, overindulgent new year’s parties, as well as cancer diagnoses, retrenchments and the death of parents. We were there for each other. As tight as a group can be without being called a cult.

And then, at 5pm on Friday, comes a text from Anne*: “Me and Alex are splitting up.”

Alex and Anne were world-class pranksters, so I laughed out loud. But then the message went on to detail how they were going to manage the separation, the practicalities, the call for........

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