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After 18 years of marriage, Justin Trudeau and Sophie Grégoire Trudeau are separating, with the prime minister seemingly following within the footsteps of his father, who went by way of a divorce in his dying days in politics.

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Trudeau Jr. is the primary prime minister to undergo a separation whereas in workplace since Pierre Trudeau and Margaret Trudeau, Justin Trudeau’s mom, separated in 1977 and divorced in 1984. Nonetheless, there are some variations. Justin  and Sophie Gregoire Trudeau have been married for 18 years, whereas the prime minister’s dad and mom separated after simply six years. And there’s solely 4 years between them, whereas Justin Trudeau’s dad and mom had a 29-year age hole. Justin Trudeau’s marriage can also be unravelling on the similar age as his father’s marriage was simply starting.

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When Pierre Trudeau and Margaret Trudeau (née Sinclair) secretly married in 1971, she was simply 22 years previous, and the elder Trudeau was 51. They’d met on the island of Tahiti; Sinclair was simply 18 on the time.

“I discovered her eyes terribly lovely,” Trudeau later recounted.

The wedding got here when Trudeaumania was at its peak, and newspaper accounts of the wedding be aware that “infatuated younger ladies” have been devastated when Trudeau married an “unknown flower little one,” because the Globe and Mail as soon as put it.

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The 2 have been secretly married in North Vancouver, and spent the post-ceremony weekend snowboarding in Whistler, earlier than returning to Ottawa. The official honeymoon came about aboard a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker. 9 months after their marriage ceremony, Justin Trudeau was born; Pierre handed out cigars to reporters who have been outdoors the Ottawa hospital. Pierre was reported to have mentioned the child was born with “about as little” hair as his father.

Margaret and Pierre Trudeau have been a lot within the public eye. They have been mobbed at e-book signings, and collectively on the marketing campaign path in 1974, the place Margaret spoke of how he was “fairly a ravishing man … who taught me so much about loving.”

Margaret additionally raised eyebrows: In 1974, whereas the couple was in Caracas, Venezuela, Margaret proposed a toast and sang a music she had written herself for the president’s spouse.

The couple separated in 1977. On the time, the Prime Minister’s Workplace issued a discover: “Pierre and Margaret Trudeau announce that due to Margaret’s needs they shall start residing separate and aside. Margaret relinquishes all privileges because the spouse of the Prime Minister and desires to go away the wedding and pursue an unbiased profession. Pierre may have custody of their three sons giving Margaret beneficiant entry to them. Pierre accepts Margaret’s determination with remorse and each pray that their separation will result in a greater relationship between themselves.”

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On the time, it was mentioned that the 29-year age hole between the 2 contributed to the separation, with Margaret having bother adjusting to life because the prime minister’s spouse, minimize off from her associates and her pursuits by safety and life at 24 Sussex, and irritated at Trudeau for always working as head of the Liberal authorities.

“I felt unfulfilled, sad, caught in an old school marriage. I wished my very own life and my very own profession,” Margaret advised The Globe and Mail in 1982.

The 2 had three kids: Justin Trudeau, Sacha Trudeau and Michel Trudeau, who died in an avalanche in 1998.

There was stress all through their marriage, most clearly when Margaret, the day earlier than their sixth marriage ceremony anniversary in March 1977, attended a Rolling Stones live performance and stayed with the band in a Toronto resort, spending time with guitarist Ron Wooden. She advised reporters Trudeau Sr. was infuriated, and had given her a black eye when she returned house.

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Nonetheless, there had been happiness. Through the winters at Harrington Lake, the place Canadian prime ministers have a cottage, they performed open air and baked pies, within the autumn they harvested maple syrup and in the summertime had picnics and barbecues. “It was a beautiful life, however there was all too little of it,” writes Margaret in one in all her memoirs.

On the time they separated, Margaret denied in an interview with the Girls’ House Journal that she had been untrue as rumours abounded a couple of hyperlink to Mick Jagger when she moved to New York to pursue a profession as a photographer following the divorce.

“It was vile innuendo and suggestion — completely distasteful. Apparently ladies aren’t even allowed to speak with a person with out the extent of being interpreted as sexual,” Margaret mentioned. “I’ve by no means had a romantic involvement with anybody aside from (Trudeau) and he has by no means felt threatened by vicious rumours of alleged extramarital affairs.”

She was additionally dogged by rumours — which she denied — that she had moved to New York as a result of she was pregnant and wished an abortion. On the time, Canada was nonetheless greater than a decade from legalizing abortion.

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Six years after their separation, in November 1983, Margaret, then 35, filed for divorce, citing the long-term separation. They have been formally divorced in April 1984. A couple of weeks later, Margaret married Fried Kemper, an Ottawa businessman.

Margaret went on to have a lot of torrid and drug-fuelled amorous affairs, together with with film stars Jack Nicholson and Ryan O’Neal, all of which she detailed in two autobiographies, Past Motive and Penalties.

Even their courtship had been tumultuous, with Margaret writing in Past Motive that she was seized with jealousy when Trudeau had a candlelight dinner with actress Barbara Streisand and that when Trudeau proposed marriage, he insisted that she have to be trustworthy, cease utilizing medication and “cease being so flighty.”

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