Betrayed Selves

Published: 27/04/2006

As the blows land, you feel your jaws breaking. ears bursting, knees buckling, stomach hollowing out. Your beloved partner, best friend ( in many cases), father of your children has been having an affair. It really is like being attacked and beaten up, only worse. Speaking out this week, Belinda Oaten wife of Libdem MP Mark felt she had been hit by a ‘wall of pain’ when her husband confessed his six month liaison with a male prostitute. John Prescott’s extramarital high jinxes with his diary secretary, 43 year old Tracy Temple will have left his wife, Pauline crashing into that wall too like countless other nameless lovers of perfidious men.


Disbelief, fury, self-loathing then washes over you. Betrayed women often blame themselves - they had got older- God forbid- had not provided enough sex, hadn’t kept themselves slim and tight and perpetually fascinating. Many also hope the relationship can be salvaged. Mrs Oaten does; possibly Mrs Prescott too. I completely understand them as I did too once. You can never forget but are desperate to forgive even as you hate him for what he did. You want to put the broken life back together again.

Some can. Cecil Parkinson found his way back into his marriage and Mary Archer stands by her errant man. But the rest of us hopefuls set ourselves up for another bout of humiliation further down the line. It is only then that you can see that male infidelity is often more about power than anything else. I don’t mean the political power of Mr Blubber Prescott which helped him pull Tracy ( do you doubt that for a moment?) but the power such men exercise over the lives of their partners and children. They deceive, manipulate, decide when and if the spouse is entitled to know. In the cases above media exposure forced the scandals out into the open otherwise, possibly, the men would have carried on eating and having their cakes with greedy delight. Boris Johnson should be made the patron saint of this band. If they are readmitted into the relationship they nearly wrecked, too many pretend remorse and use the time well to exploit the gullibility of their wounded but grateful women.

I was whisked off to Mexico for an unforgettably romantic holiday by my ex-husband when I discovered his adultery with his university student. Orchids were delivered to my workplace, letters full of Byronic feeling ( and as false) were left around the house and all the while he had never stopped the affair. Five more years of my life were taken before he finally departed leaving me feeling bereft and completely used. I still cannot forgive myself for handing my destiny over to such a man. Pauline should take control, drive off in a Jag and save her self respect before John’s temporary contrition disables her resolve. The pictures of her husband cavorting show he is gone already.

Published in The Evening Standard