Back to reality - the end of the ‘dream’.

And now my current husband has said ‘shall we call it a day’, at the Polish Club in South Kensington as we were waiting to meet friends for dinner. I walk out, shaking, grabbing my coat and he messages, ‘where are you’. I say I can’t stay in the room as he’s said it is over, the messages continue, he says there is no point in marriage counselling. I make it to Kings Cross and order a wine in the German Gymnasium. I am so flooded by emotion and need to be able to make it back home.

Another wine and I try to get the train, the trains are packed and I can’t get on one, I have an overwhelming desire to be sick, the shock, and make it to the toilets just in time. I am wearing a tulle skirt and am aware that people must be looking at me - someone who went out thinking it was going to be a night of frivolity, only to be met by earth shattering news.

I know he is right, he was brave enough to call it, we love each other but it’s not enough against the demands of work (in a recession), the girl's trauma, the reopening of the court case with the menopause thrown in. I wonder if my healing journey was too late, or in fact if this is what caused it.

I drink enough when I get home to sleep, and am up early the next day as I have to be on a coach at 8am to take Lola to an Athletics meet. I pack diazepam and know I just have to get through the next 12 hours. It was a blur, in torrential rain I had to help officiate the Javelin - read picking up Javelins - but somehow I appeared normal I think.

By the time I got home he was also home, he told me he had told his children and the reality that he had done that already compounded the knowledge this was it. I had thought we would be able to weather the storms but this has taught me that love doesn’t conquer all, you need love but also the willingness to work on yourself, as I had.

The next two days were a blur of drinking, smoking, telling the girls who were distraught but I managed to pull myself out and with it found a new strength and feeling of peace I had never thought I found. The healing I had done is prevailing and whilst I am devastated I know I have got this.

The first week was farcical, Lola's phone broke, she veered between telling me to beg him back vs telling me it was for the best. I treated her to acrylics and with wise mum words told her not to get them too long - she did, to the point she got locked out as she can’t open the keysafe (hysterical). Iris was in shock, when it wore off she was sick, vomiting with anxiety.

Practicalities also have kicked in. I am trying anyway possible to stay in the house. And when needed I am playing the ‘peaodophile’ card when talking about mortgages/car loans etc.

But it has also been a serendipitous week. By chance I have met two women who have also been through the family courts, and it was so so lovely to speak to people who know it. Whilst in Court (against husbands for different things) the judicial system brought with it the same practical and emotional stanglehold.

Both women had experienced the same emotion, feelings of powerlessness, the speed at which decisions were made in the days and hours leading up to Court appearances which friends and family couldn’t possibly comprehend. And I know part of this is why my husband asked to ‘call it a day’, because he couldn’t fix this, there is no solution, you just have to go through the system.

And I realise that peado has applied to the Courts again because he can’t stand me being married and happy, and my marriage is over because of Court and associated trauma. But this is now real life. I am healed to a point, but the point I know I can and will survive. I am sure I will always mourn the loss of my husband, but I also know that things work in mysterious ways. Our family unit was needed over the last few years for all of us. Being a family of 6 meant we got through Covid, but now a new chapter.