‘Suddenly single at 60 – and I’ve never felt so free’
Last November 11th is a Remembrance Day I will never forget. That evening, while driving me back from a Pilates class, my husband finally confessed to an affair with a work colleague that I had strongly suspected for months.
The rest of the year and much of this one has been a bit of a blur. He left home the following morning, at my request, and I spent a long time in a sobbing, sleep-deprived heap on the sofa, wondering what the rest of my life would look like.
Our 27-year marriage, much of it full of banter and joy, had been smashed to bits by that clichéd perfect storm: a younger blonde attention-giver and a spectacular male midlife crisis.
It was the immediate and the practical, rather than my entire derailed future that hit me in the aftermath: how would I navigate our youngest son’s upcoming 21st birthday with one parent short? What would our first Christmas be like without him at the table? What about our plans for my big 60th birthday? (I was keen for us to return to one of my favourite hotels in Switzerland. It has since become clear why that suggestion was met with a lukewarm response).
Yet here I am, almost a year later, having reached that landmark age, not crying into my cornflakes but busy, thriving and liberated.
I would not insult anybody who has lived through a traumatic and sudden breakup by minimising the grief I have experienced. There have been times my sons, siblings and no-nonsense friends have scooped me off the floor like human spatulas.
But I have not only survived. In many ways I have thrived.
One of my friends recently declared; ‘You’ve phoenixed it’ which is an excellent verb to describe having risen from the ashes of my former life.
I managed it by doing the exact opposite of what I had planned. Instead of slowing down, I am running at life like Forrest Gump. Instead of saying no, I am filling my diary with yesses. Crying on the sofa became boring and pointless after a while and it also stained my velvet cushions. So, my sister came as my plus one to my son’s 21st and we had a brilliant time. She and my brother-in-law stayed for Christmas – a first for us all – and cooked the best roast dinner we’ve ever had (she is a chef, which came in handy). We laughed a lot.
I took my first ever solo holiday with a group of women from all over the world – a tour of Italy that was joyous and life-affirming. I made a friend called Hayley from New Zealand, danced like no-one was watching with the owner of a fish restaurant in Sorrento and ate sorbet in Capri made from lemons the size of melons.
As for my birthday, well I’m still milking it. Instead of a Swiss minibreak, I have enjoyed at least half a dozen parties across the country with friends and family, in part to say a huge thank you for their support.
Life is a strange pendulum and while my personal life was falling to bits, my career perked up like a dose of HRT, with opportunities I have mostly said yes to. A mate I hadn’t seen in some time recently asked how I was feeling. The first word that came to mind was not ‘broken’ or ‘lost’ but ‘free’. My future is not how I planned it. But I’m determined to phoenix the life out of it.
