Woman No 1 - anatomy of The Break-Up

The Break-Up, when it came, was a relief. 

At least at first.

The back end of May. Late night. Sarah Chilton (Woman No 1) on the phone. I was just two months into the battle with my employer, Angela (Woman No 2) and fighting for my professional life. My diabetes was out of control. My depression worsening.

And then suddenly, Woman No 3 (Jo, an ex) lurches into view.

"You spent the afternoon with Jo in the garden!", Sarah screamed down the phone at me.

What was this? I had sat with Jo in my back garden for an hour, discussing my case over coffee - was Sarah spying on me? 

As she ranted, I hung up and went to bed. Stupidly I know, now. Immature. 

But the pressure I was already under was insane. The fight over my job. My diabetes. My depression.

I had asked, almost appealed, to Sarah weeks before, for a period of peace and quiet.

Now someone, anyone, screaming down the phone at me, was the last thing I needed. I just  couldn't cope with another hissy fit. I had too many other things to try and deal with.

A day of silence and then, the next day, my front door keys arrived in a scruffy brown envelope through the post. That was it. Nothing else.

“I’m not being treated like that," I can hear Sarah saying. "The cheek of him putting the phone down on me! How dare he! I deserve far better than that! I did what any other self-respecting woman would have done, didn’t I?”

That was May, it's now December. And there hasn't been a single day when I haven’t thought of Sarah.

The emptiness, the wondering, the loss, the anger, frustration and grief. The black cloud getting blacker every day. The storm clouds gathering until I finally snapped.

Often, my thoughts were filled with hate, sometimes disappointment, often bafflement. Anger. Blame. Frustration. Only lately have the thoughts been of pity and some compassion.

Why didn't I contact her, I can hear you ask? If you really loved her?

Well the returned keys were fairly emphatic, weren't they? And contact her for what? For another screaming tirade? I just couldn't face it. Perhaps that was my cowardice.

But if the break-up hadn't been because of an hour's conversation in the back garden with an ex who was helping me with my case, it would surely have been something else. My children. My home. My health. Anything was possible.

Sarah had a history of wild, uncontrolled temper, like a naughty child.

Was I supposed to give up that friendship with Jo, now? When I needed someone's advice, counsel, support. This was insane.

Jo had already plugged me into one of her friends, the head of HR at a major firm who was happy to offer free advice and guidance through the minefield of employment law. She had been through the industrial tribunal process. So she advised me. And I was grateful.

It would have been stupid, self-destructive, of me to choke that off.

So it ended with Sarah - except, of course, it didn't for me.

Months of anguish, pain, sorrow. Feeling abandoned (more later), rejected, unloved, culminating in my suicide attempt at the end of August. The summer of love, eh?

With hindsight, I do blame Sarah, at least partly, for kicking this whole sorry saga off. Triggering the battle over work and my resultant chronic depression and anxiety. 

                                                                               

I vividly remember her saying that weekend in March about Angela's texts to me: “how dare she do this when you are on a weekend off.”

Which started the whole nightmare really.

So, try as she might, (if she even thinks about it) Sarah can’t wash her hands of all responsibility.

Without that extra pressure, who knows what would have happened?

I didn't fully understand Sarah's deep insecurities and almost pathological jealousy. Her constant need for physical and emotional validation (Alastair Campbell has interesting things to say about this in his diaries). All my fault really for not understanding. But then she didn't understand me.

And then she walks away from it all, leaving me alone to try and pick up the pieces.

Greeeeaaattttt.

                                                                                                                 
 She left her partner of 18 months, when he was really struggling with a serious health condition, severe depression and facing one of the most difficult traumas/struggles of his professional career. 

And all because of an hour's conversation in the back garden with an ex, who remained a friend.

I can’t see it any other way. Although I have tried, again and again, to understand.

I just do find it absolutely astonishing though, that she should abandon me when I was hitting an all-time low. Someone whom she professed to 'love.'

And of course, I blame myself. Not worthy. Not good enough (I'm sure Sarah would agree). Not love-able. Abandoned. Rejected. Dismissed. 

Cue resultant lack of self-esteem - and then we are well and truly off down the path to 'suicidal ideation' territory. And all the intervening months of pain, hurt, bewilderment and grief.  

So let me speak about Jo. We had an intimate relationship, which I ended as soon as I met Sarah and which I then honestly told Sarah about. Stupidly.

But, as grown-ups are supposed to, I tried to remain friends with Jo. Had a lot in common, shared politics. shared interests, shared experiences.

I valued her friendship and - especially while I was battling for my career - her advice and her support. She understood what was going on, better than most. It's not that I kept Sarah out of anything. I just needed another view. Jo had experience of taking a case to an industrial tribunal.

But it was too much fror Sarah to cope with.

Did Sarah really think I was being unfaithful to her?

I think not. It was just the very fact that I spent an afternoon talking to Jo. Seeking another take on the unrelenting destruction of my professional career. That was my sin. My infidelity.

I had invested (wrongly) so much time and attention on Sarah in the previous 18 months, that, when she left, I had no-one else. No friends, no advisors, no one who understood or who would just listen. No-one I could just turn to for another view.

So I get punished for that.

Great.

Love, eh?

I can't say that I wasn't warned. There had been the tell-tale signs with Sarah previously. The sudden hissy fits, the irrational tantrums, the feeling that I was living in the shadow of a volcano, always on the verge of erupting.

And Sarah's oft-repeated wish that we "live together alone, in the country, just the two of us and the dogs". A complete fairy-tale, with her as the Princess, no doubt. Unreal.

There was her unhealthy relationship with her parents who lived just a stone's throw away and with whom she shared personal details about us. Her hero worship of her father - perhaps she had seen me as his substitute?

But this particular hero needed help. He wasn't strong, he was weak. And vulnerable. 

Sarah's parents worshipped her and gave her unconditional, unquestioning love, of course, as all parents do. They never challenged her about anything. Ever. Allowed her to behave like a spoilt child.

Even after one previous relationship, with a doctor, ended because he wanted to see his grandson at Christmas. "He was supposed to be with me," she had told me, "I felt like a mistress". I raised my eyebrows. I didn't fully understand her needs.

Then there was the ex who she also bailed on, after he had a heart attack.

Again, someone who was vulnerable, showing weakness and perhaps significantly, not the healthy, bursting-with-vitality man she wanted and constantly espoused in her career as a health professional. You can see where I am going here?

And perhaps where she will be going too in the future?

Maybe it was also my fault that I couldn't give her the unconditional love her parents gave her. But no man is an island and right then, I needed help, when my back was pinned against the wall.

In her deep insecurity, she obviously saw my contact with Jo as betrayal (more of this later). I saw it as natural to seek help from anyone who could give it. And I was absolutely sure of my feelings for Sarah. But that wasn't good enough. I guess she needed even more than that - the fairy-tale again.

The truth is that I never thought/looked/cared about any other woman all the time I was with Sarah. I had no need. She was intelligent, attractive, vital and everything a man could want in a partner. Maybe I idealised her. And maybe my pre-occupation with her was, forgive the pun, unhealthy, too?

It's tempting to conclude that Sarah ran away because she didn’t have the bottle for the fight with my employer (Angela - Woman No 2). She didn’t like it. Didn’t want it. I was weak, not strong. Unhealthy. So maybe she just took the easy escape route.

But me, in extremis, calling on others for help/support, meant that she wasn’t valued? Or loved? Really? 

How twisted is that? 

We live and learn. Maybe.

But the worst is yet to come.

Next: The Great Betrayal