Anthea Turner - How to Survive Divorce

J uly 17th 2013 is a beautiful day. The sun is shining, the sky is cloudless and its pleasantly warm. Ive left the heat, noise, and artificial light of the London Underground at Chancery Lane and am now soaking in the afternoon sunlight as I slowly make my way through the City streets.

I stare at buildings as I walk. Its a passion of mine imagining what went on behind these huge oak doors when they were first hung in the eighteen hundreds. But really Im not concentrating; my mind is all over the place, pictures of my life are flicking through my head and Im clutching too tightly to a large file that contains details of what I know of my finances.

The street Ive now reached is Bedford Row, the encampment of Britains brightest legal brains. The picture which is sticking in my head more than the others is one taken on my wedding day almost thirteen years ago. There I am, sitting on a horse on a carousel with the man who has swept me off my feet, promised me the earth and made me feel like the luckiest woman in the world. If only I could speak to that blissfully happy woman and tell her what was going to happenBut there would be no point, she wouldnt believe me, shes lost in the moment.

I turn and walk up a set of steps and ring the buzzer. There are tears dripping from my eyes onto the York Stone below; Im a mess. Im fifty-three and today instead of working out whats for tea Im filing for divorce from Grant Bovey. Im here to speak to my lawyer about ending my life as I know it; to legally disassociate myself from the man I have loved for nearly fifteen years and believed with all my heart I would grow old with.

Nearly four years on from that sad day Im in a healthier, more optimistic frame of mind but its taken every hour of every one of those years and a serious amount of hard work to rediscover my independence, confidence, and inner strength. Only now do I feel Ive returned to the person I am and somewhat shocked when I recollect a woman I dont recognise, whose normality slowly became a co-dependent, people-pleasing wreck, sacrificing her own independent mind through fear of loneliness and of losing everything shed invested her love in. This woman was so intent on keeping the family unit together to the point of forgiving her husband his infidelity that she totally forgot herself.

In writing and researching this book, I have spoken to many experts in their fields who have kindly agreed to contribute where necessary, offering their wisdom. They have been incredibly generous with their time and any errors are definitely mine, not theirs.

I have also spoken to many amazing women whove been through divorce and come out the other side, a little battered and bruised perhaps but definitely stronger for the experience. Theyve also been kind enough to share their stories. Where requested, their names have been changed to protect their privacy.

I make no apologies when I say this book is aimed at women, particularly women of a certain age. When I was looking for comfort in the pages of endless self-help books, I couldnt find exactly what I was hoping for; that book hadnt been written. Hopefully this will go some way towards helping other women who find themselves in the same position I did.

B etween the opening and closing of the London 2012 Olympics, my marriage was in tatters after I discovered Grant was having an affair, then restored to what I believed was honeymoon happiness. Watching the Rio Olympics on TV in 2016, I found it difficult to believe it had been four years since that tumultuous time.

Of course as is well-documented, my relationship with Grant was founded on adultery on both sides, a fact that I never allowed myself to forget. When we got together, he was already married to Della and parents to three lovely girls: Lily, Amelia and Claudia. I was married to former DJ and businessman Peter Powell. We didnt end our marriages lightly; ours was never simply a casual affair. But inevitably, breaking up two homes had painful consequences. What it taught me was that so many mistakes were made and people were hurt, something Ive apologised for time and time again. I knew, without any shadow of a doubt, I would walk over broken glass to avoid it happening ever again.

When Grant once attempted to justify himself and silence my pain by saying hed done it before, I was the other woman and hadnt cared about his ex-wife Dellas feelings, I was livid. Its such an easy justification but so wrong. I know I made mistakes I freely and with all my heart apologise for them but to move through life with intelligence you have to learn from them.

A red mist descended upon me as I realised what hed done.

Before I learned for sure Grant had been unfaithful, I felt something was amiss. I knew this man so well and sensed a change in him. His pattern of behaviour altered and he began staying away from our home in Surrey, preferring to overnight in London more and more. I didnt want to believe anything was wrong of course but I couldnt shake the feeling he was hiding something from me. I would question him and receive implausible explanations which I simply didnt buy, yet he made me feel I was in the wrong, being unnecessarily suspicious. This was my best friend, my partner, lover and confidant acting oddly, yet telling me I was imagining it. Its a horrible, horrible feeling when that happens and you can slowly feel your confidence eroding away. It destroys you from the inside out. Every time I asked him if there was anything the matter or why he was doing something I thought was a bit unusual, hed give me an exasperated look and deny there was a problem until I started to change into a person I didnt want to be, giving him even more ammunition to behave like a man I didnt really know any more. I was left feeling vulnerable and exposed, totally different from the confident, happy woman hed first met and fallen in love with.

Now, call me nave but despite my sixth sense telling me my husband was acting out of character, I imagined all sorts of scenarios to explain his behaviour but infidelity was the last possibility on my long list. Common sense told me that it would be absolutely ridiculous for either of us to go down that path again. How wrong was I? The opening ceremony of the Olympics was knocked off the front page of the