On Saturday, I intend to vote no. I can come up with various reasons for my decision. I won’t go into all of them but I’ll just mention a few.

When I married my wife, I gave her a lifetime commitment. I swore to her that I’d be there for her in good and in bad times, until death do us part. So I really can’t understand how someone can tell me that the contract I signed with her ceases to be a lifetime commitment and becomes a matter of convenience. Rather than until death do us part, until one of us gets fed up! Mind you, I didn’t just give this commitment to my wife, I also gave it to our kids and I intend to keep that commitment.

But, really and truly, I will vote no for my kids. I cannot really understand how we are all discussing such an important issue as divorce and forgetting the kids factor. When we procreated our two kids, we did so with the consciousness and commitment that we will be there for them whatever happens. Our life revolves around them and their well-being. The divorce as it is being proposed is just an issue of convenience for the adults. There is no safeguard for the children and if there are no safeguards for the children there will be no safeguard for our society.

Please don’t mention the fable of the guaranteed maintenance money. Deborah Schembri admitted on TV they can only guarantee the right to get maintenance money and that nobody can guarantee that it’s actually paid. But, apart from this argument, even if we assume for a second that the divorced person does pay the maintenance money, when it comes to kids, it’s not really a financial issue. They’re not after the money; they want the time and love of the parent, something the parent cannot give because s/he is busy building another family possibly with a new set of kids. So the kids who were the fruit of the first family and who have no fault in the divorce issue of their parents suddenly get relegated to a second-class family status.

Divorce is definitely not a solution for the kids. It will just add to the confusion by giving them several mums and dads instead of just one pair. Is this right? Will it give the kids the stability they need? I don’t think so and this is why I will vote fervently no.

The yes campaign is saying this is a responsible kind of divorce. I’m sorry but it seems that my definition of responsibility is very different from theirs. Does responsibility mean I file a divorce when I get fed up of my better half? What if my better half gets sick, why should I sacrifice my life? What about the “for good or for bad” part of my contract? What about the ping-pong game with the kids?

Is this responsibility? I don’t think so.

Let me tell you what a responsible divorce is. This is the story of what happened to a friend of mine. When he became 21, his parents called him over and they told him they would divorce. They told him their relationship has been going astray for at least a decade but they wanted to shield him and his older sister from the sufferings of a divorce. This is responsible divorce because the interest of the children came before the personal good of the parents. This is not what is being proposed in Malta, so I’m very much convinced of my no vote.

Finally, I cannot but deplore how this whole campaign got orchestrated. How we were thrown into this whirlwind without a real information campaign. On the other hand, I believe that we, as a society (including me, you, the state and the Church), should utter a big mea culpa. A lot of couples have passed through the turmoil of separation and we’ve just been watching these families collapse without raising a single figure to ease their pains.

If the no vote wins on Saturday, I hope we won’t just sit on our backside waiting for someone else to propose another divorce law in the future. We have to devise a clear strategy on how we can protect the family. And, yes, we have to provide options for those families that fail. Only if we do so can we ensure that our families are built on solid rocks and not on sand.

Dr Dingli is mayor of Valletta and a lecturer at the University of Malta.