When I decided to write about our experiences it was to help others; I have lost my mum and my dad, good friends and colleagues to death but I can honestly say that I never in all those times, felt pain like I felt at this time.

It has been proven now that people who experience infidelity in their lives can often suffer from a form of PTSD for a long while afterwards.

I also know from the research I have undertaken that one of the things that the person who has been betrayed (and yes, they have been betrayed) struggle with is putting the pieces of the jig saw together and understanding. At first this is because we are so fucking angry that we cannot understand anything, there is nothing to understand right?!

The people that we love(d) have hurt us in a way we would never have imagined and it is all their fault, there are no circumstances that should have led them to where they were and that’s it!

Then there is the fact that we would not have done it to them – aint we lucky!?

This is a memory from before ‘The War’ just after I had received her text directly to my home phone in the March, when Danny had returned from work the next morning after ‘she’ had tried to cause trouble. When we had sat opposite each other at our breakfast bar and Danny had looked me in the eye and said ‘Did I really think that he would cheat on me with anyone let alone someone like ‘Her’, he actually said “because she is no comparison to you.”

Here is what else he said. He told me that he never thought that he would keep me. He had never understood why I was with him, that I was so pretty, so clever, too good to be with him.

Danny explained then that every day when he came home from work he would expect me to not be there anymore; for me to have packed up mine and Ethan’s things and gone. He told me how he noticed other men look at me when we went out and that he knew in his heart of hearts that one day one of them would take me off of him. When I asked him how long he had felt like this he said “ever since we met.”

I was shocked and just could not understand why he would think this, I loved him so much. Everything I did was for him, we had an idyllic life ..

Well I know now that leading up to the war I did have an idyllic life, but Danny was terrified all the time, through nothing I had done, just because of the wonderful story telling spin doctor in his head.

I have written this little piece because of questions others have asked and to help you start to understand.

Rosie

Making This Better the book is now available including the journal entries for the first 5 years of our recovery & the whole 21 days of ‘The War’. Available internationally in paperback and ebook  at Amazon and Barnes & Noble also available at Xlibris and Apple Books for iPad and Waterstones Bookstores for click & collect