My Story

“To me, the thing that is worse than death is betrayal. You see, I could conceive death, but I could not conceive betrayal.” ― Malcolm X

Before I start telling my story I would like to highlight my best and worst personality traits. My best attribute is that I always give 100% of myself, whether it is to family, friends, and colleagues or in business. You can be assured of my love, loyalty, trust, honesty and integrity.

My worst personality trait is that I expect 100% in return. If I do not get it, or when disappointed, I tend to cut you out of my life...

As a result of my divorce not yet being finalised, there are parts of my story I cannot fully disclose as I do not want to jeopardise the outcome (of my divorce settlement).

Almost 19 years ago at the age of 35, I met my “knight in shining armour”. He had been exactly what I had been waiting for and we married approximately 3 months after meeting one another.

My strengths were his weaknesses and vice versa, we had the same interests and we were a match made in heaven - or so I thought. It was my first marriage and his second marriage.

I never thought, in my wildest dreams that I would have to justify to anyone that I have been a truly loyal, loving, supportive and caring wife, always being there for him while he was building his business and was always at his side in the activities he enjoyed. We never fought about anything and most importantly I never looked at other men and thought “mmmmm, yummy, eye candy”… except perhaps for George Clooney and Hugh Jackman. I was however not subservient, I was a strong willed wife, not submissive, or a “walk over”. We would have robust debates on many issues regarding business and life in general. Our friends, our family and most importantly the youngsters in our lives strived to have a relationship as “perfect as ours”.

Up until approximately 10 days prior to discovering my husband’s affair, our lives were perfect.He suddenly started arguing about everything and indicated that his company was in financial trouble. I begged him to allow me to support him through this, even offering to cash in my only investment to help the company get back on its feet. Our physical relationship continued until the night before he left home.

The incredulous reality of my husband’s affair was made known to me via SMS sent to the workplace cellular number, to which all my staff members have access. A staff member retrieved these SMS’s which added to my humiliation and shock. The cliché that the betrayed are always the last to know, is now forever cemented in my heart. Because of the incredible relationship that everyone, including myself, perceived to be reality, my first reaction was denial and I thought someone was playing a really cruel joke on me. When I confronted my husband he vehemently denied an affair. Whilst trying to establish the truth and to reconcile any misunderstandings with my husband, I was contacted telephonically by the husband of my husband’s lover. He confirmed that the affair had been on-going for a couple of months and as a result, he was filing for a divorce.

As my husband is in the medical profession, we always had an adequately equipped medication kit at home. I immediately ran to the kit hoping to find medication that would assist me in taking my life, but there was an insufficient supply available. I called to ask him for a prescription of the strongest pain killer I knew of and he sent me mail informing me that this drug had been taken off the market. He prescribed a very mild sleeping tablet for me and I knew this wouldn’t aid me in my cause so I considered a trip to a foreign destination where medication was freely available since I did not believe I could, and most certainly did not want to live without him.

I discovered that while I was away on a trip, prior to my dicovering his betrayal, he had “the other woman” in my home and had introduced her to my family and on another occasion he had taken her on our boat thus invading all of the places and spaces which were sacred to me. Incidents such as this shattered my life. 

When I met my husband almost 19 years ago I insisted he undergoes an HIV test prior to having a physical relationship with him and now I suspected my husband had exposed me to HIV. The 3- day wait for my HIV test results were the longest days of my life! Fortunately the results were negative. To make matters worse, “the other woman” has far more external beauty than I ever hoped to have and has “a body to die for”. This made the betrayal feel so much worse. 

They say a beautiful face without a beautiful heart means nothing - but this was no consolation to me. He was living the high life, buying flamboyant luxury cars, travelling with her, having fun, whilst my whole world as I knew it collapsed around me and I felt like I was dying a slow death - I could actually feel my heart bleeding.

I made no contact with our friends or his family, as I did not want to place them in a predicament where they might feel they need to choose sides. Some of my friends were persistent and supported me through this ordeal while I did not hear from others. I had never felt more alone and spent my days pining. Many of our friends, my god children, neighbours and family also felt betrayed by my husband and hurt with me - their pain added to my anguish.

Being in "shock" my symptoms included: constant heart palpitations, severe deterioration of eye sight, bruising, constant vomiting, insomnia, headaches, dizziness and a lack of concentration, to mention but a few. The upside to all of this was that I shed 10 kilograms in 2 weeks. My family and friends saw how I was deteriorating physically and emotionally and a friend pointed out that I could not afford to get ill as I now had to rely on myself for my financial, physical and emotional wellbeing. So off I went to a Doctor, started taking supplements, force feeding myself and exercising.

Even though I was making a concerted effort to get on with life, I walked with my phone in my hand 24 hours a day waiting for him to call me and prove that it was all a terrible misunderstanding but when the calls did come they never contained words I wanted to hear.

The festive season was always hard for me as my mom had passed away on the 28th and was buried on the 30th December. So when I received a SMS from him on the 3oth I immediately thought it was to say he was thinking of me; instead it was some obscure SMS. To this day I still don't know the meaning of his SMS but incidents such as this resulted in me losing respect for the man I had once loved so truly, dearly and deeply. When you lose respect and trust, love dies and the healing process begins. So I searched for and listened to stories about him and my respect for “this stranger” steadily declined. 

I can say with conviction that once you have been betrayed by someone you truly love and live for, you will never betray another human being, as the pain and devastation suffered is just totally unbearable

One night, my godchildren took great effort to choreograph and perform two songs for me. The one being a Kelly Clarkson song called (stronger) “What doesn’t kill you” and a song sung by the artist Cher called “I’m strong enough”. While watching their “magnificent” performance I realised how much they loved and cared for me and I realised that I had to be strong and succeed if I wanted to be a role model to them.

Looking back now it felt as though I was having an out of body experience, looking from the outside in.

I was blessed to find a good friend, who had suffered betrayal a few years earlier. One day this friend asked me what my greatest fear in life was and without hesitating I replied “living without my husband”. I spent lots of time with this family and found myself laughing “from the stomach” and I then started realising that perhaps I could cope with life, after “the death” of my husband.

This friend convinced me that if I could overcome the fear of living without my husband, I should tackle all my other fears and got me to see my divorce as being given a second chance to “live life to the fullest”.Even though I had the most incredible support from my friends, god children, neighbours and family, the importance of meeting a friend that did not know either of us and who gave me an unbiased view of all the emotions I was undergoing was a support that I will appreciate for the rest of my life. I was made to realise that the materialistic lifestyle I had been living the last few years was not required in order to enjoy the most important things in life. I now believe “that anything money can buy is cheap” and hope to be blessed with Health, Laughter, Enthusiasm, and Love.

Of course I worry about my financial situation now, but I had a very poor and humble upbringing and have never been scared of hard work and am eager to start new ventures! 

I am currently not romantically involved and am spending my energy on my friends, family and on building my business.