a la retourne

Possibly a misnomer - because I am not a Frenchwoman returning after her annual holiday.

I am a miserable old cow, wallowing in her pit, seemingly unable to drag herself out and back into life.

Oh God, will it never stop raining, thus inducing such streams of self-pity I cannot distinguish between the rainfall and my tears. At least dear Billy flies from somewhere in the house from time to time, places head on lap, and then reaches up and cleans my salty wet face. A simple thing such as this pulls me back every time, even if only for a short while.

I managed 12 months, and now it is downhill all the way. I feel as if I never existed and never mattered and never had a place in this world. Everything has been expunged, and I am so cross with myself. I knew perfectly well what a bastard my husband was, and that his constant infidelties, lies ansd profligacy should have hardened me, but nope, it didn't. I lived in my little bubble, took him back every time,and went on to endure even more misery, even more lies, and infidelities, and now I hate myself almost as much as I hate him.

Nothing was right for him - I have discovered that he started his constant affairs when my girls were very small, with my sister-in-law, my oldest friend, his secretsries, every woman who crossed his radar, what did they see in him? Some of these women, I know, did it to spite me, what had I ever done to them?

We were very short of money for years, the girls did not have everything I would have liked for them, he must have been spending precious pennies on all these women, or, fiddling his expenses all along the line. Dear God. I went out to work, long hours doing demeaning jobs, long hours commuting,and all the time, he was serially misbehaving. He had a mistress in America for years, older than him, and he had the gall to arrange for the girls to spend summers with her and her family, and guess who paid the air fares from her meagre wages. Yup, yours truly. I must add that this all came to light many years later. He used to come home after what he said were three week study tours in the States, with cashmere sweaters, Gucci watches, and say they were corporate gifts! Cashmere sweaters were major news 20 years ago. I believed him! He did bring me a Coach handbag once, and much later I discovered SHE bought it for me. God almighty. Thank you for lending me your husband. Bitch. She was 15 years older than him, a grandmother, looked like a thinner Barbara Bush, and was very small town America. He asked her to England, and ahe came to lunch, yup, she came to lunch. No, at the time I did not know. Why did I not cotton on? She arrived with a gift of Hartmann leather luggage. Mucho denario, as they say. Idiot me. She was introduced as a business colleague. She even came to England, and took my girls out from boarding school. Dear God, what a bastard I was married to. He never had the guts to bail out, he shagged his secretary from the mid-eighties until recently and had the cheek to say to my eldest daughter that he finally gave her up because he realised she was expecting him to marry her. Odd, really, because this ran concomittantly with the present slapper. Oh dear, oh dear. Does she think he will marry her? I don't think so. He is with her through desperately not wanting to lose face after being chucked out by me, and being finally divorced by me. Just retribution, I think.
I should like to add here that when on his American trips, he enjoyed holidays at an exlusive country club called Belle Rive, when the girls and I did not enjoy holidays, because there was no money avsilable, with the Barbara Bush look-alike I should add. What a total wanker.

No, I do not feel scorned. I did the right thing - but it is hard - hard to face the fact that I mattered not a jot to a man I spent 44 years of my life with - hard to accept that I have been replaced by a money-grubbing, serial marriage wrecker, even though at my behest, of whom someone said to a frind of mine this week, "Is it true that V's husband has gone off with G?" when told yes, but that I had chucked him out, said "How extraordinary, G is so hard and V is so attractive" Natch

Rescue me, rescue me. from my slough of despond. The bloody rain is teaming down the windows, God, life is dreary. How, oh how, could I have allowed it to happen?




Dear friends, I was married to the bastard of the century for years. My only consolation at the moment, is that he is shacked up with the tart of the county, who, in the words of some very good friends of mine, has 'had' half the men in the county, is as hard as nails, and thinks she has landed a 'rich entrepreneur' Ha-ha -bitch - he has spent all the money, and a lot of it on her. Pot empty - none for her now.

Has this been a catharthis? Probably not, but it bloody well helps.

I must add that there is nothing written here that is news to my two dear daughters. They struggle with their loyalies it could never be otherwise - and I am so sorry.