My sixteen-year-old-daughter, Sofia, is hoping to raise money so that she can travel to Uganda in the summer to help deprived people living there.
Working with the charity The Great Generation her ambition is to supply underprivileged Ugandans with books, female hygiene products, building materials and essential educational resources.
Sofia has never done anything like this before in her life and I am extremely proud of her for wanting to make a difference in this way.
Below is a link to her Wonderful crowdfunding campaign. I would be so grateful if you could make a small financial contribution or, alternatively, share, retweet or reblog this appeal.
Many thanks,
Ian
https://www.wonderful.org/fundraiser/thegreatgenerationugandaexpedition2020-8987bc4e
For the second time I’m referencing the totally brilliant https://www.chumplady.com. If, like me, you discover that your long-term life partner was in reality a cheating, lying, manipulative adulterer her website is an absolute godsend.
Likewise, her brilliant book Leave a Cheater, Gain a life is a must read if you are in need of strength during those all too frequent occasions when you find yourself at a low ebb.
Tracy Schorn is my kind of writer: eloquent, pithy and bullshit eradicating.
Here’s a link. Buy it now:
Here’s Chump Lady’s typically forthright response to a letter received from a fellow ‘Chump’.
Dear Chump Lady,
Why do serial cheaters get married? I really don’t understand this. I’ve been married four years and recently found out that my husband has been cheating on me with the same “ex-girlfriend” off and on since we met. I suspect now there were others too. And no, I had NO idea. (And yes, I feel like the biggest idiot ever.)
What I can’t puzzle out is, in this brave new world of Google and Craigslist — couldn’t he have found another swinger? Someone okay with open marriage? Isn’t there yet a dating site devoted to the polyamorous? He clearly knows he can’t be monogomous. Hell, why not marry the girlfriend? She’s clearly okay with being a side dish fuck.
Why did he MARRY ME? What does marriage mean to someone like him? What was the point?!
Signed,
This Sucks
Dear Sucks,
Because you are of USE to him.
That’s pretty much it. I puzzled on that a long time too. My ex-husband was cheating from day 1 as well.
Serial cheaters like your husband and my ex like cake. They like deceit. It makes them feel powerful. As you said, it’s a big world with Google — they could find a fellow swinger to forge an “understanding” with. They could stay single. But no, they CHOOSE to marry someone, feign monogamy, and fuck around. So it’s the power imbalance that they’re after. Only THEY can fuck around — not you. You get to be in the dark. They like it like that.
Meanwhile, you jump through hoops to please them and never quite get more than a C+ for your efforts — work harder! But they need you to be the Respectable Face of Marriage. You are of use. You make them look good. Maybe you’ve got money, good looks, connections. Whatever. You’ve got something they need. People like this need to appear normal so they can dupe other people. They get a high from deceit. And to deceive people you need concealment. Hey, Bob’s married. Bob must be normal. His wife is sooo nice. Ergo Bob must be nice. (Codependents who marry guys like Bob tend to be very nice. Bobs pick nice. Nice makes a good mark.)
Cake eating, serial cheaters think they deserve all the ego kibbles they want. Because they believe they are better than you. More deserving. More kibbles for them! None for you!
Please dump this guy if you haven’t already and find a fellow nice person. It’s the best way, in my opinion, of detoxing yourself from the Bobs of this world. Find a Paul. A nice man, for whom monogamy and devotion is not a 12-step program. Who reciprocates. Who is authentic. Pauls are not as sparkly as Bobs. But that’s a good thing.
I’m sorry this happened to you. Four years of your life is a lot to lose to an idiot. You know, Tennessee Williams always took four years off his age for the four years he worked in a shoe factory before he became a famous playwright. Consider Bob your shoe factory and subtract.
“I love you but I’m not in love with you.
A classic. Translated, it means—“I did unloving things, but telling you ‘I love you’ makes me feel better about them.” I love you but I’m not in love with you is simply impression management.
It has nothing to do with you, chumps. This is about maintaining the cheater’s self-image. And it softens the blow. Hey, you wouldn’t impose consequences on someone who loves you, would you? Cheaters think they’re letting you down gently.
Cheater love is a compartmentalized kind of love—“I love you, but I put that aside while I was fucking someone else.” The two things aren’t at all connected. Why should “love” get in the way of a good time?
Chumps naively assume that people who love us act like they love us. Cheaters subvert that assumption and turn it back on chumps. “But I’m not in love with you” is a subtle blameshift. “I don’t feel giddy and effervescent. I need sparkles. Alas, if you had only twinkled more brightly, perhaps it would not have come to this.” It’s so disappointing the way you’ve let them down. What can you do to make it up to them? “I love you but I’m not in love with you” is your cue to perform the pick-me dance. You may be dumped anyway for the affair partner, but some parting kibbles would be nice.
The subtle mindfuck of “I love you but I’m not in love with you” is that it’s not definitive. It’s pure cake speak. Cheaters aren’t saying, “Hey, I love someone else. It’s over. I’m sorry.” No, there is an opening—they love you. Just not in that way.
To a cheater “I’m not in love with you” is justification for casting about and loving someone else. So which came first? The falling out of love or the permission they gave themselves to cast about?
Your response: Chumps, don’t try to parse with cheaters which parts of you they love or what their butterflies are saying to them today—state what you need.
“I need to be in a relationship where I am fully loved and respected. You don’t love me the way I deserve to be loved. Buh-bye.” Don’t ask yourself what you did to be so unlovable. Don’t dance the pick-me dance. Just let go. I’m sure the butterflies will be migrating again soon.”
Excerpt From: Tracy Schorn. “Leave a Cheater, Gain a Life”.
Link to Tracy’s excellent web site: https://www.chumplady.com
When I say I’m in love with you, I mean I love the way I feel when I’m with you. I love myself through you. I love seeing myself through your eyes. I love seeing myself through my eyes imagining how I look through your eyes. I love having someone new to tell my stories to, to express my opinions, and to share my profound theories and beliefs about the important things in life. I love hearing myself say these things as I imagine how they sound to you, and how enthralled with me I imagine you are.
When I say I’m in love with you, I love having someone beautiful to wear, like a new outfit. I love the way you feel on me. I love the way I feel about me when you are with me.
When I say I’m in love with you, I love not being alone. I love not being that tree falling in the forest. I love having a full-time, personal audience.
When I say I’m in love with you I mean I love being your mystery, your riddle, being what keeps you up at night, your obsession. I love being your altar, your sacrament, your icon, your miracle. I love being your answer. I love being the object of your sacrifice. I love being your pain.
When I say I’m in love with you, I mean I’m in love with being your sun, monopolizing your orbit, being your gravity, keeping you drawn back to me no matter how hard you try to jump or fly, keeping you down. Keeping you mine.
When I say I’m in love with you, I mean I’m in love with breathing your air, sucking your blood, eating your dreams. I’m in love with being your drug, your dagger, your suicide note.
When I say I’m in love with you, I mean I love the story I can tell to my next lover, about my ex-lover, about how beautiful things were, how intense, how storybook, what a couple we were, and how you gradually, inexplicably, painfully, bit by bit, disappeared.
“The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naïve forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.”
Thomas Szasz
“Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.”
C. S. Lewis
“Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”
Mark Twain
“It is easier to forgive an Enemy than to forgive a Friend.”
William Blake
“As a rule, the person found out in a betrayal of love holds, all the same, the superior position of the two. It is the betrayed one who is humiliated.”
Ada Leverson
“A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.”
Dave Barry
“All cruelty springs from weakness.”
Seneca
“A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves.”
Simone Weil
“Any woman can fool a man if she wants to and if he’s in love with her.”
Pearl S. Buck
“One may smile and smile and be a villain.”
William Shakespeare
“Everything that deceives can be said to enchant.”
Plato
“The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly deceived.”
Oscar Wilde
“Divorce is the one human tragedy that reduces everything to cash.”
Rita Mae Brown
“The liar’s punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.”
George Bernard Shaw
“While forbidden fruit is said to taste sweeter, it usually spoils faster.”
Abigail Van Buren
In the beginning it was perfect. It was as if all roads in your life had been converging on this point. Every false start that you had endured, every betrayal you had suffered, everything that had ever happened to you in your miserable, unfulfilled life was merely a rehearsal. It was all leading up to this moment.
And she was beautiful. Impossibly beautiful. And funny. And kind. And generous. And wise. You wondered what you had ever done to deserve such a rare treasure. You wallowed in her sweet aroma. You basked in her dusky body heat. You worshipped her being. In the bedroom you had never experienced such bliss, such sensory pleasures, such togetherness. When you talked it was as if you were one and the same person. She was perfect. And wonder upon wonder she believed that you were perfect too. She told you how handsome you were. How witty. How clever. How special. She wanted to find out everything about you and didn’t seem remotely troubled by your more obvious imperfections. The things that had held you back all your life. The scars that stubbornly refused to heal.
This was love. You were experiencing LOVE. Real love. True love. Enraptured to be entangled in its silky net. Never in your wildest dreams could you have imagined it would ever feel as good as this. As pure. As selfless. As all-consuming. After all those years of hopelessness your life finally had meaning. This is what you had been building towards from the day that you were dragged screaming from the womb. You believed. And, incredibly, she believed, too. You were Love Twins carried along on the wheels of destiny. The two of you overdosed on joy. Freebased on passion. The bliss was almost palpable. You could touch it. You could smell it. You could taste it.
So you ditch your long-term partner and she ditches hers. They never really meant anything, you tell yourself. Because now you have the REAL THING. You get a place together and the days float by in an opiate haze. Every waking moment, every sleeping moment is spent in her company. You talk. You eat. You laugh. You drink. You make love like never before. You plan. You plot. You scheme. The future is no longer a foreign country. How is it possible that it can feel this good to be alive?
And then one day when you least expect it you hear the teeniest, weeniest alarm bell gently tinkling away in your blissed-out brain. What’s wrong? you ask. Is it something I’ve done? But she just sits there in a grubby dressing gown, her eyes staring blankly ahead. The lips that you long to kiss saying nothing. And suddenly you recoil against the bedroom wall. Such anger! Such rage! How can this girl, this woman, my Love Twin, be saying such things? The shock jolts you temporarily back to reality and the breath is squeezed from your lungs. Your world is shattered into pieces and already you would do anything to glue those broken shards back together again.
In the morning come the apologies. The tears. The explanations. Always the explanations. It’s hormones, she tells you. It’s a medical condition, she will say later. It’s this. It’s that. So you wrap your arms around her trembling shoulders and tell her not to worry. We can fix this, you say. Together you and I can make this right. And she kisses you and a smile lights up her beautiful face. The snarling, spitting stranger from yesterday now banished forever. Until the next time that is.
The days turn into weeks and the weeks turn into months and the months turn into years. The passage of time is immaterial so long as you have your Love Twin. A baby arrives. And even though you never really wanted one you pick the little girl up in your arms and you’re in love all over again. Now there are three of you. Three of you against the world. You pose before the camera lens and smile. You don’t deserve this. You don’t deserve such happiness. Nobody does.
And then… And then… Things begin to change. Slowly. Insidiously. Like the stationary hands of a clock you are unaware of any movement until you chance to look away. You’re the same person that you always were. At least, you’re mostly the same person. Sure, you don’t go out as much as you used to but then you have different priorities nowadays. For one thing there’s a toddler to look after. To feed. To clean. To entertain. What could be more important than that? And so what if you’re losing touch with your friends? And for that matter your family, too? But that’s only natural, isn’t it? You keep telling yourself that. (Why does she do that strange thing? Verbally attacking the people you care about so that these days you’re wary of introducing her to anybody? It must be because she loves you so much that she wants to have you all to herself. Yes, that’s the reason. It’s charming really. Sweet.)
And then one evening you catch your reflection in the mirror. You look older. Heavier. You’ve put on thirty… Forty pounds and your belt strains against your flabby belly. You limp a little, too. (You really must see a doctor about that when you have a moment…) There are dark circles under your eyes – hardly surprising given how hard it is to sleep at night. Who’d be a father, huh?! And yes, you’re a little down these days. Well a lot down actually. You know that you are. She tells you all the time that you are. She tells you because she cares about you. Because she’s your Love Twin. But then there’s so much to worry about. So much work to do. It’s only natural.
When you met your Love Twin you were a writer. You even sold a few books in your time. But that’s in the past. You’ve put your career temporarily on hold while you attend to more important matters. And yes, you hate the job that necessity forced you to take. You really despise it if you’re honest with yourself. The thought of doing it sometimes makes you feel physically sick. But you don’t have a choice because there’s the baby to look after. You have to be there to take her to school. And you have to be there to pick her up afterwards. It’s lucky that we found a job with such flexible hours. We’d have been in real trouble if we hadn’t been able to do this.
And every evening you wait for her to come home. She doesn’t like to cook so it’s best that you do it. And even if your meagre efforts are often rewarded with a grimace it’s not really important. You smile at her as she floats into the house. She pecks you on the cheek and frowns. She doesn’t notice the aftershave that you’ve doused yourself in especially for her. She’s oblivious to the softness of your chin. (Naturally, you love her so much that it’s become your habit to ensure that you’re freshly shaved and showered for that special moment when she floats in through the door.)
To grudging appreciation you serve the food that you’ve prepared. You swallow it down whole and it sticks in your teeth. You stack the dishwasher and put the baby to bed. Except that she’s no longer a baby. She’s growing up fast. Full of questions. Too many questions. I simply don’t have enough energy left to reply… No more questions. Please. No more demands. You hear the pulse of your heart as you fight to keep your eyes open. So you read to the little girl until she begins to fall asleep. But you’re falling asleep too. You’re falling asleep all the time.
Without ever noticing it a stranger has moved into your house. But you don’t know she’s a stranger. She stares at that chunk of metal and glass in her hand. Endlessly… Endlessly… Endlessly… Tapping away like a metronome. Gently smiling at nobody. Immersed in secret thoughts.
Yet she never seems to hear your thoughts. And if she does hear you she won’t let you speak. If only she’d stop interrupting me, you cry, I could tell her what’s really on my mind. But then… But then… You’ve forgotten what it was you wanted to say. Perhaps it’s just as well. It couldn’t have been that important anyway. Your Love Twin works very hard. It’s perfectly understandable if she sometimes gets frustrated and hits out at you. And even if some of the things she calls you are nasty – well unforgivably nasty, in fact, the sort of things that no person should ever say to another – it’s best that you keep the peace. You can’t really blame your Love Twin for telling it like it is. After all, you know that you’re too sensitive… That you overreact… That your depression is bound to cloud your judgement… That you overthink things… That you’re damaged… You know this because she tells you so. Not to hurt or criticise, you understand. But because she loves you.
You know that she loves you because sometimes there still are those moments of bliss. Less frequently, of course. Not so often as they used to be. (Bringing up a child isn’t easy, you know!) Well actually it’s gotten to the point in which you’ve given up trying. She tells you to calm down. To get a grip. To get over it. That it’s nobody’s fault that you both have different sex drives. Naturally she has a point. Sometimes you try to tell her how unhappy this makes you feel. But it’s not really that big a deal. Because every now and again – once or twice a month if you’re counting – you will feel her creamy flesh against yours. She will extend her arms towards you and for a brief few moments everything is as it should be. You inhale the love. You suck it in. A desperate unspeakable kind of love. How lucky you are to have found your soulmate. You’re the love of my life, she will gently whisper into your ear. She tells you this all the time and you know that it is true.
How is it possible that your daughter is starting senior school today? Why, it only seems like yesterday that you watched her mother squeeze that frail little body out from between her thighs and into the light. Do the years really pass so quickly? You’ve lost your mojo. You’re not the man you used to be, has become her mantra. You used to be so wild… Lippy… Uncontrollable… A real rebel… Perhaps you should see a doctor? Maybe therapy would be good for you?
And she’s right. Of course she’s right. You can feel it in your crumbling bones. You can see it in your your blood-shot eyes. How did you become such a disappointment? How could you let your Love Twin down like this? Surely she deserves better? She’s an important woman now. You can’t believe how much money she earns from that job of hers. Well, career is the more accurate way of describing it. (Remember when you had a career?) You’re so proud of her. So proud that she gets to travel around the world: to New York… Milan… Paris… Berlin… You tell her that her achievement is your achievement. That staying home to babysit your daughter on those dark winter nights is small fry compared to the pressure, the responsibility that she has to bear on a daily basis. You’re so proud of her. So proud…
But even as you have changed over the years, so has she. She’s 44 now but looks ten years younger. Everybody says so. You’re 53 but look ten years older. Nobody ever mentions this. They don’t have to. There’s no getting away from the fact that you’re an older man with no power, she scornfully tells you one afternoon. Whereas I look better than I’ve ever done.
And who can disagree? She does look better. More beautiful than she ever did. And clearly it’s no accident. You have to admire her for the number of hours she puts in at the gym. You hate the gym yourself. You don’t know how she does it. Certainly all her new friends seem to agree with her. They love her. They worship her. And who can blame them? It’s such a breath of fresh air, you try to reassure yourself, that she basks in the glow of these bright young flames. Much better than worn out old farts like me. It’s incredible really. You don’t know where she gets the energy from. Three… Four… Sometimes five nights a week she’s out there putting in a full shift with those youngsters. Clubs… Gigs… Festivals… Fancy restaurants… Well, with a job like hers she’s entitled to let her hair down from from time to time. We all are.
But where exactly did these people come from? These flawless, unblemished, unwrinkled young friends of hers? You can’t really be sure. They just seemed to appear one day, to materialise out of thin air: a couple of new faces here and there and then more and more and more. Names mentioned in passing and then in every other breath. And they carry with them new experiences… Alternative attitudes… The foreign language of the next generation… New music… Indecipherable sounds that make no sense to you but your Love Twin somehow seems to effortlessly assimilate. She doesn’t even listen to any of our music any more. But then come to think of it she never really did listen to it. How could you not notice?
Sometimes she even lets you tag along for the ride and you pretend to enjoy yourself as you’re dragged around a flickering dance floor inhabited by people twenty years your junior. Amused to see you. Embarrassed to be seen with you. I don’t really want to be doing this, you meekly whisper under your breath, but I love her and she’s probably having some kind of mid-life crisis. Yes, that’s it – a mid-life crisis. It’s those pesky hormones again. Those irritating chemicals that are to blame for those infamous temper tantrums of hers. She needs my support so that one day she’ll come back to me and I’ll have her all to myself again. After all, I’m her husband and best friend. It’s my duty. It’s the least I can do.
But yes, it can hurt. Deep down it can really hurt. You never mention it but you hate how she dresses these days. Skin tight jeans… Plunging necklines… So much bare flesh. So much cleavage. Who exactly is she putting it on display for? Well obviously it’s for your benefit because you’re the love of her life. You know this because barely a week goes by without her telling you so. Despite everything you still have that special bond that brought you together. That made you Love Twins. She’s still your soul mate. She never stops telling you that. 17 years is a long time in anybody’s book. And don’t forget that you created a daughter together. A living, breathing human miracle.
And then one day your reality crumbles. It dissolves into a fine dust that floats through the air and clogs up your lungs. Purely by accident (was it really an accident?) you discover your Love Twin is not abroad on business as she is supposed to be. She’s actually still in London. Why on earth is she still here? If texts could scream, your desperate pleas would be heard at the far edge of the universe. Liar! You exclaim. How could you do this to us?!
Stop making a fool of yourself, comes her deadpan response. He’s just a friend helping me go through a difficult time – I’m trying to sort out our relationship.
Give me his name then! You demand. I don’t know what you’ll do, she says. I can’t trust you.
Slowly, imperceptibly slowly, the truth is drip-fed to you over the coming weeks in bite-sized flakes. Hidden away in meandering sentences the lies detach themselves from fact and float to the surface like oil in a puddle of muddy water. I have feelings for him, she calmly admits one afternoon as you melt before her, your voice hoarse from all the shouting. He’s 31 – a whole quarter of a century younger than you – Italian, thick of hair, tanned to perfection. His youth an incurable disease. Far better looking than the empty shell of a man that you’ve become. He’s a nice guy, she announces jauntily. You should meet him.
And he’s by no means the first. You discover this as you pick away at her tapestry of deception. There was that young guy at the gym, (Ahh… The gym! The penny drops and rolls away into the distance… The gym!) I bet you didn’t know that I was sexting him last year at the Xmas dinner table? Sending him naked pictures of myself… You know, the ones that you took of me because I asked you to… Remember? And even a couple of one-night stands at parties. No, I can’t remember their names… It’s not important… Even a Calvin Klein model she announces, scarcely able to conceal her pride. Her achievement. (Her achievement is your achievement…) I’m pretty hot, you know, she smirks in a voice you’ve never heard before.
You throw her out of the house and she takes an Uber to her Italian toyboy. You intercept the email that she sends to him in transit: I’m sorry you had to be involved, she writes. My husband’s gone crazy! I love you xxx.
And you have gone crazy. How could you not go crazy? And all her young friends know that you’re crazy. Her family do, too. They know you’re crazy because she’s told them that you’re crazy. Your Love Twin has made it her duty to do so. The love of your life that was never the love of your life has somehow become the victim in all of this.
You’re pathetic! she snarls. You’re a sponger! Over the years you’ve bled me dry! You’re a loser! Get a life/job! Every day the insults smack you in the pit of your stomach. You’re a fat c**t! You’re vile! The gravy train is over! You need help! Even your daughter doesn’t want or need you! I hate you! Stop abusing me!
You lose all understanding. Your world collapses around you. You don’t know where all these words are coming from. You no longer recognise the person saying them. You cry. You rage. You plead. You whimper. Your Love Twin has gone. Somebody else has her now and a stranger has taken her place. In a long neglected alcove of your mind a memory flickers away in the half light. And you find yourself thinking back to that morning all those years ago. And that alarm bell tinkling gently away in your loved-up brain.
Naturally you let her back into the house. There was never really any doubt that you would. A couple of days later you greet her at the front door. You and your hangover. Your only companion. Your new best friend. You tearfully tell her you’re prepared to forgive. Have you no self-respect? comes her retort. So cold. So icy. You explain that you’re willing to go into therapy with her. To try to work out why she’s behaving like this. Both of you know that this isn’t really her. Something has happened to mess up her head. 17 years together cannot be thrown away in the blink of an eye. On one condition, she frostily announces, that I can carry on seeing him at the same time…
And then one day it all becomes too much for you. The pressure crushes your spine. Your shoulders are blocks of ice. Nothing you can force into your body can nullify the pain. You pack a couple of bags: Underwear. Socks. In only a couple of months you’ve lost that thirty or forty pounds that you’d piled on over the years. You look older than ever. And even the pills cannot bring the blessed relief of sleep. You say goodbye to your daughter, almost an adult now. You cling to each other and she tries to hold back the tears. And then you bid a last farewell to your Love Twin.
How could you do this to me? you plead.
It was bigger than me, she shrugs.
But how could you tell so many lies?
I lie because I can, she replies, with a cheerful smile.
And then she wraps her arms around you and you feel her tears creep down your neck. You’re the love of my life, she whispers in your ear as you close the door behind you and head off into nowhere. Nothing to show for 17 years of commitment. Of love. Your thoughts flow like treacle. The pain of the loss, the agony of the betrayal overwhelms you, like a rusty dagger has been plunged into the epicentre of your soul. How will I ever recover from this? you scream into the dazzling sunshine. It’s just not possible. How will I ever live again?
But life goes on for some people. Of course it does. Barely 24 hours after bidding that final tearful farewell to the love of her life, her life partner for the best part of two decades, the father of her child, your Love Twin is parading her shiny new toy before her parents and your dumbstruck daughter. His skin is taut and unwrinkled; his smile is sweetly earnest with unplucked innocence.
He’s in love. You know this because your Love Twin told you that he is (Although I’m not in love with him – I’m not in love with anybody actually…). If there was any pity left in your heart you would hand it to him freely and without hesitation.
On Tuesday 12 June 2019 my first ever ‘art’ exhibition opened at the Hastings Arts Forum, 36 Marina, St Leonards on Sea, TN38 0BU. The show finishes on 23 June and features watercolours of artists who died tragically young. People such as: Amy Winehouse, George Michael, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Keith Flint, John Lennon and many others.
At the age of 56, this has been a long time coming. Given that I abandoned painting back in 1988 in favour of trying my luck with the written word it is as much a surprise to me that this is happening as I’m sure it is for anybody else who knows me.
I resumed painting in 01 January 2017. I decided to do so because I was taking a three-month sabbatical from alcohol and needed something to fill in the hours. My wife in the meantime, went out partying and clubbing with a much younger set of friends that she had suddenly commenced socialising with. I thought she was having a mid-life crisis and tried my best to be supportive.
Except that she didn’t got out with her new unblemished friends. Although she was occasionally to be found shaking her booty with her ‘hip’ young crowd what she was actually doing was having multiple affairs behind my back. I’m more than a little humiliated to admit that I simply didn’t have a clue this was going on. I feel stupid and foolish beyond words that I was so easily deceived. We’d been together for 18 years and I trusted her more than I trusted myself. I thought that were both going to grow old together. So did she – or so she frequently told me.
But everything exploded in my face in early July 2018 when I discovered – via Find My Phone of all things – that my betrothed wasn’t actually working abroad as she was supposed to be. She was in Hammersmith playing tonsil tennis in the grubby council flat of a 31-year-old Italian ex-soldier.
Four months later, after our once incredible, amazing relationship had at light speed devolved into something that went beyond toxic, I reluctantly left the woman I loved and moved to Hastings alone. There was no other option for me. I simply had to get as far away from the nightmare as I possibly could.
After almost two decades together it was took only four days for her to openly, brazenly and cynically parade her lover before me. He is 25 years younger than I. Impossible to compete with. Whatever I thought my reality was crashed and burned before the now distressingly alien and gloating eyes of the ‘love of my life’.
I moved out of my own house on 26 October 2018. It was without doubt the saddest day of my entire life. Worse than the death of any loved one that I had ever experienced. It was the death of everything I knew. I was lost. Abandoned. Betrayed. Hopelessly alone. Not so apparently for my wife, however, who, after 18 years during which we had spent almost every day together as partners, lovers, including 13 as man and wife, promptly took my shiny Latin replacement to meet her parents and my 15-year-old daughter in Brighton.
It took her less than 24 hours to do this. It was absolutely astonishing to me: heartbreaking, devastating, that the woman whom I thought I knew better than anyone on earth could be so callous, so cruel, so lacking in empathy. It was as if I had awoken to find myself in The Twilight Zone.
Evidently she’s now with this individual full-time. Her regular postings on social media reveal that they make a handsome if slightly incongruous couple. No amount of expensive cosmetic surgery or bottles of hair dye are, however, ever likely to conceal the fact that she is 17 years older than her youthful paramour. And with the onset of menopause looming ominously on the horizon one suspects that this yawning disparity in years will only become more apparent as time rolls on.
My deep, heartfelt love for my soon-to-be-ex-wife has turned into indescribable hatred. Particularly as I later learned that the Italian was just the tip of the iceberg. One of countless lovers consumed over a very long period. All happening in plain sight of me. At the same time as my wife and I continued to have an apparently ‘normal’ physical relationship. At the same time as she regularly assured me that I was the ‘love of her life’. Her ‘soulmate’. It still beggars belief that she could behave like this. It always will.
How could I have been so blind? So stupid? So completely deceived by the person I loved and trusted more than anyone in the whole world? It’s going to be very difficult for me to ever trust anyone again. I know that for sure.
In my new hometown of Hastings I had the worst Christmas imaginable. I spent the entire day in a deep, dark depression and ate precisely two slices of bread. Despite everything, still missing, yearning, craving for my estranged wife. Heartbroken over the loss of my beatific, fragile daughter. Needless to say there was no Christmas turkey for me that day. Although It has to be said that I imbibed more than my fair share of alcohol.
As January arrived the weather was cold, wet and bleakly appropriate. I trudged the streets in a shell-shocked stupor. Then, for a reason I simply will never be able to understand or explain, I decided to contact the Hastings Arts Forum on the seafront and show them my paintings. Silly little watercolours of nothing in particular. To my very great surprise they agreed to an exhibition later in the year.
By February, however, I was beginning to grow increasingly concerned. By that time I was regularly visiting a trauma therapist, taking anti-depressants, suffering from severe depression as well as a condition known as Complex Post Traumatic Stress, not to mention self-medicating with gallons of alcohol and a colourful assortment of recreational drugs. In attempting to dull the pain through whatever means necessary I had completed a grand total of zero paintings.
In a cold sweat I began to paint. I had no choice really. The clock was already at two minutes to midnight. Dead people. People as dead as I felt inside. People as lost as I. People as hurt. People with nowhere to go but down. I’m not going to attempt to play the melodrama card and claim that painting these people saved my life. It didn’t. Nothing is ever as simple as that. Indeed, whether that will ever happen remains to be seen.
What it did give me, however, was a sense of purpose brought on by nothing more than fear of failure. Me and my hangover began getting up early each morning – not that sleep was really possible – and painting until I was too exhausted to continue. A pleasure it was not. By the time that June arrived, however, I had somehow managed to produce 32 watercolours, some quite large in scale. Given that the gallery had only requested that I produce 25 paintings I actually had the luxury of choosing only the less rubbish ones.
I’m not going to claim that they are any good. I’m not qualified to make such judgements. I am certainly more artisan than artist. Craftsman rather than creative. Moreover, I can’t even be sure if I will ever paint again. What point is there in painting stupid little pictures on pieces of paper when your life has been ripped to shreds? But at least they exist. They’re out there for people to look at. To like or to not like. To ignore if they want to. If I’m honest, I’m not particularly bothered either way.
I’ve a long way to go yet. I doubt that I’ll ever be the person I once was. The pain of betrayal strikes me on an almost hourly basis. The agony of losing my daughter is even worse. I feel physically sick most of the time. It’s simply impossible for me to enjoy even a single minute of the day. Recovery, if it is ever to happen, seems a very, very long way away.
This Friday. Tomorrow. 14 June 2019. There is a sort of posh-ish opening in the gallery on the seafront. Wine and all that. Banter, one assumes. Chatter. People talking about things such as ‘composition’ and ‘colour’ and ‘hue’. Meaningless words. It would be great, however, if anyone living in Hastings who happens to stumble across this aimless little blog could come and help make a pretty broken man feel just a tad better about himself. So do drop in and have a look at this old duffer’s daubings. It would be a shame if you’re in the area and can’t spare a couple of minutes. At the very least there’s a glass of cheap plonk in it for you.
In the meantime here are a few of the daubings in question. Please be kind.
Thanks,
Ian
On 11 June I will be having my very first exhibition of paintings. Entitled ‘Dead’, the theme of the work is singers or musicians who have all died tragically young. All of the work has been painted in watercolour over a three-month period.
There will be an opening night even at 6:00 pm Friday on 14 June at the Hastings Arts Forum. Being quite nervous about something I’ve never done before I’d appreciate as much moral support as possible.
It would be really good if you could Tweet this page or put it up on other forms of social media, FaceBook, Instagram, etc. I need as much support as I can get.
Below are a few examples of my work.
