I thought I was living a wonderful life

I thought I was living a wonderful life. I had just been given a new car for my 25th wedding anniversary, we had two brilliant children and a beautiful home. We worked hard together in two businesses and had life’s normal ups and downs.  We had several stressful attempts at infertility treatment and I had a serious car accident, but our love brought us through.

Just before we were about to go on our 25th anniversary cruise I had a lump come up in my chest, this turned out to be insignificant, however 3 days before we flew off I was diagnosed with Leukaemia.

I put a brave face on for the next few weeks, but my husband behaved very strangely. I made excuses to the children for his behaviour, but a few weeks later just before I was retiring from our companies due to my health situation, he left the family home.

I was still in shock and believing if I died, I needed to have everything tied up for the girls .  He took full advantage and the divorce swiftly snowballed.

I felt very alone and afraid, my youngest daughter became very poorly due to the separation, which further compounded the situation.

Fortunately around this time I read an article on Restored Lives and signed up on the next available course.

Suddenly I no longer felt alone, there were others just as traumatised by their own situation.  The course not only gave me a purpose each week, but I have made great friendships, and always have someone to ring on those low days.

My life is very different now, I have lost my best friend, lover and soul mate, but I feel lucky I have good health and my daughter is well again.  They are both a tremendous support to me.

I would urge anyone going through or knows of anyone going through marriage breakdown to attend the course, and finally I would like to thank all the volunteers for giving up their time to help and support people like myself.

Anon