A very important issue which the ‘No’ camp needs to acknowledge is the amount of wounds they have re-opened in this terrible, blackmail campaign that has involved children.

Each and every time a child (who might now be an adult) passes those posed and downloaded images of Aryan looking happy families on billboards, it re-opens horrific wounds to their souls.

Every person who has been affected by divorce in one manner or another will be the first to tell you that they wished they had the traditional family unit around them – that dysfunctional, yet happy clan of related people that live and breathe for each other.

But ask those same people whether they would prefer the family to stay together in terrible conditions of threats, insults, abuse, anger and screaming matches, over estrangement and the answer is rather different. Nearly all of them will tell you that partners going their separate ways brings peace and atonement, and living in such a detrimental environment causes the problems that still haunt them in later life.

This is the fundamental problem that the short-sighted and unaccountable ‘No’ movement has.

They simply do not understand – because of the blinkers that they have put on (whether in terms of religion, misplaced belief in the perfect Maltese family; or even politics), that it is not the break-up process which harms children, but the years of living in such an unstable environment.

It is not the break-up that causes hardship – that only brings relief and realisation. It is the fact that children watch their parents fight and bicker, eventually becoming loathe to one another, that causes the real harm. Spending more time in that environment is what causes kids to rebel, to turn to crime, to become sullen and withdrawn.

Yet children are strong. Many of those who have been affected by divorce grow up with one fundamental thought in mind: I must avoid that situation at all costs in my marriage. This is why many of them tend to have much longer courtships than those who don’t. It is because they want to make sure that their offspring will never have to go through the heart-rending trauma of watching mum and dad drift slowly apart and experience the death of a marriage.

A marriage does not end at divorce. A marriage ends when partners don’t speak anymore. A marriage ends when parents couldn’t give a toss about their kids when they row and row. A marriage ends when people have another partner(s?) on the side. A marriage ends when abuse is thrown around constantly.

A marriage ends before separation. A marriage ends when one of the two (or both) decide that they just can’t be bothered anymore.

Divorce is a piece of paper. Divorce is a civil decree to end the civil ties of marriage. Divorce allows people to move on.

We will take one family as an example. A couple had children. They were pressed to marry in the late 1980s… it was the ‘right’ thing to do, because she was with child. Just a few years later, he starts beating her and his four boys.

He drinks in the każini, turning up worse, night after night. That woman finds the strength to leave her abusive husband.

A few years down the line, she meets a nice man having two daughters of his own. His wife had eloped somewhere, with someone. He never had a way to trace her. Today, they live happily as a family of eight. They are an inspiration.

Who are Andrè Camilleri, Arthur Galea Salomone, the renegades of the Church and our politicians to deny them the right to marry and legitimise something beautiful? If you can live with that, then it is no surprise that the cohabitation Bill will not feature redress for people who are separated.

That is the reality of divorce, not this film noire that the ‘No’ camp is trying to implant in people’s minds.

Brainwashing is what it is.