So, after a hellishly sleepless and panicky night, knowing my husband was sleeping with his mistress, and one of my best friend’s had suggested we go to the guest house where D was staying so we could give him a ‘rum old hiding’ the next day started with trepidation and anxiety.  I didn’t hear from D – rather than coming home, he stayed away.  Coward.  But in a way, that didn’t really surprise me. He’s egocentric and arrogant (and a million and one other horrible things) so of course he’d stay away rather than grow some balls and confront me.  He went to meet his friends, and he took her to meet them too, including his bestie, someone who is also egocentric and arrogant.  And now we have separated, I can say with gusto and vigour that I really don’t like this best friend.  He’s a cocky moron.  (I found out later that this bestie had already met her twice!  And when I asked him what she was like, he told me – she never says anything…)

Then after a second sleepless night and a second day of a frenzied attempt to ‘keep calm and carry on’ (not a hope in hell), I tracked the car as it came back towards our town.  Yikes, not only had the car arrived into our town, it was coming towards our house.  Shiiiit – the car had arrived at our house!!  WTF.  I was ready and waiting, and when he entered our sitting room, I punched him in the face.  It wasn’t a good plant – because I’d never hit anyone before – so I went to punch him again, but in that milli-second, I could feel the pain from the first punch fire-up in my fist and I stopped myself from pummelling him multiple times.  I hated him so much, and by the look on his face, he hated me too.  I screamed at him.  It felt good.  I then, quite calmly, told him to pack his stuff and get out of my life. And he slowly, sheepishly, went upstairs with his head hung barely looking up from the floor.  Pathetic.  I could have kicked his a*se.  The evil w*nker.

Unbelievably however, fate had different ideas and the craziest thing happened:

D went straight to his study, I presumed to check his work emails.  No sooner had he got there but our daughter came running into the kitchen to tell me he was crying.  She asked me to come and see him and reluctantly, being dragged by her, and with a huge weight on my shoulders, I went.  He really was crying.  A lot.  Like really, really crying And when I asked what the matter was, he told me that Eddie, one of his best mates had died.  Eddie was a family friend and someone we all knew well.  In fact, we had only recently been on holiday with him and his sister.  Our daughter went to hug her daddy and instinctively pulled me in for the group embrace.  I started crying uncontrollably too. I will never know whether it was the death of our friend, the horror of D touching me, or the sheer absurdity of the situation that made me cry like that that day.  But now, all three of us were all, rather hysterically, crying.   I mean it was crazy crying.  I can remember a look of confusion on our daughter’s face.  She had never seen us like this, and she probably felt quite shocked.  She must’ve thought, wow they really loved Eddie.

R said he was going to make some phone calls to his other friends, and as he did so we could hear him crying again.  Our daughter and I were now in bed together, watching TV as a distraction, whilst intermittently talking about Eddie’s death and trying to answer the weird questions children ask like, where Eddie’s body would be right now and what would happen to that body next.

Soon D entered our bedroom.  It would have been too late for him to go to his dad’s house now I suppose, but he definitely wasn’t going to sleep in bed with me until our daughter pipes up with, “Can we all sleep together tonight?”.  You couldn’t have made this up could you?  And with that, were all lying in our bed together.  F*ck my Life!

That night he tried to touch me.  I remember it.  His hands were cold, and I was repulsed by his hands on me.   To retaliate, I kicked him as hard as I could – which wasn’t that hard because we were horizontal in bed.  I lay awake most of the night with silent tears running down my angry face.  How in God’s name was this happening to me?

“Nobody can start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”

– Maria Robinson

The next day, I told our daughter that daddy was going to his parents’ house, which wasn’t anything unusual to her, and she would be going too for some pre-Christmas shopping at their local outlet centre.  I desperately needed to be alone.  Once they’d gone, I cried and cried, loudly this time, so alone and so lonely, distraught about my past, troubled about my future and panic stricken in the present moment.

A category A friend rang – any other friendship category and I probably wouldn’t have answered.  “Happy Christmas.  How are all the festivities panning out?  N.  You okay?”

Not the Christmas catch-up she was expecting.  She didn’t know a thing, so she got a lot more than she bargained for.  And no sooner had a I got off the phone she was at my door, us both crying together. It was pure, raw grief and I was so grateful to her for being there with me.

Later that night, I don’t quite know what came over me, but with calmness and courage from having one of bestie’s beside me, I decided to ring Natalia.

She answered.  She immediately told me that she’d been awaiting my call.  She told me loads and loads of heart wrenching stuff:

1 She’d fallen in love with him, though they hadn’t ever said they loved each other.  (He denied ever having any feeling for her).
2 He had promised her a future. (D denied this saying that he’d only said things like, ‘One day we should go to Munich together’, etc.)
3 He had been to Prague to meet her mother.  WTF.
4 They’d been on little trips together to Bournemouth, Bristol, Cardiff and Oxford.
5 She’d met a handful of his friends, including one I would consider a close mutual friend.
6 They were meeting up once a week or so (D denied this).
7 She’d been in my house and told me “I can describe it”
8 She told me their sex life was ‘Dodgy shit’.  (To this day, D claims he doesn’t know what she means by that).
9 She told me he’d had another affair but she refused to give details.
10 She said when they got together, they hadn’t had sex for ages because he wouldn’t wear a condom and she thought it was unfair to me.
11 She told me there’d been a pregnancy scare (D denied this too saying that her period was a couple of days late).
12 She told me they’d split up a couple of times, once because he told her she had tiny tits and another because guilt had overcome him, but each time he’d been the one to rekindle.
13 She told me he’d never ended the affair before we went to NYC.  He just told her to wait…

And on it went.  Blow after blow, until there was nothing else to say, and then I thanked her for talking to me so candidly and I calmly put the phone down.  My friend, who had heard everything, and I stared at each other.  We hugged and rocked, and I sobbed.  I was utterly exhausted and couldn’t think straight. It was horrible, and it was happening to me.