a wounded, divided life

Delores, 48, has been separated from an abusive husband for five months and has been doing her best to hold down a customer service job and keep her private life out of her working life, but the more she tries to divide herself the less she is able to achieve her intention.

“I just can’t help myself at times,” confides Delores. “I am crying one minute then being rude the next and not only were customers being shocked by my erratic behavior but also my co-workers.”

“I was inadvertently taking out all of my frustration on everyone around me at work,” confesses Delores, “but it was the arrival of my estranged husband at my workplace that was the last straw.”

“We had a ferocious argument, I was screaming and crying and he was hurling abuse at me and shoving me around,” explains Delores. “The police were called and I was asked to take time off to get myself together.”

“I took the rest of the week off and really tried hard to calm down and get my life back together,” says Delores, “but since returning to work I can’t help noticing that co-workers are avoiding me – and I don’t blame them.”

“I guess younger women involved with similarly violent men are not yet old enough to have experienced the incredible pressure required for the monumental blow up that they saw me have with my estranged husband.”


Read more by Delores on this situation:

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menopausal mad cow

Sad sacks at work

mad old cows at work

clinging and pathetic?

Miranda’s husband abandoned her with a newborn baby when she was 23, telling her she was clinging and pathetic even though he knew when he married her that she had two issues – scarred lungs which made breathing difficult, and a longstanding fear of abandonment.

"In some respects my childhood fear of abandonment has been a self fulfilling prophecy," sighs Miranda. "My husband left with me with a newborn baby when I was 23, he said I was too dependent on him, too clinging and pathetic, and this hurt me terribly because up until then he had been very kind to me.”

“Actually, I think he was the pathetic one – someone who couldn’t cope with the responsibility of being a parent – and I managed to cope very well on my own with my little girl,” explains Miranda, “and here I am twenty years later bracing myself for my daughter's departure from my life."

"She, of course, won't be abandoning me in the manner my mother and husband did," says Miranda, "but it will be a separation all the same - far more for me than for her because her life has been charmed - except of course for her father abandoning her at birth."

"At 43 I feel I should have the intelligence to understand that what happened to me at the age of three – when my mother abandoned me – and at the age of 23 when my husband abandoned me – is not going to happen to me now," says Miranda, "but try telling that to my inner child!"

“I tell myself over and over again that I am going to be alright on my own after my daughter leaves home,” says Miranda. “It’s quite possible that being totally on my own is just the test I need to show me that I am much, much stronger than I ever believed I was – that I am not the clinging and pathetic woman that my ex husband said I was.”

Read more about Miranda:

childhood lung disease

babies do remember!

there’s no separation from herpes

Separating from a husband who infected you with herpes is a no brainer, but because there is no separation from herpes – it’s permanent – Ulrika will have a lifelong reminder of the shame she felt when the disease was diagnosed.

“Separation is hard enough for any woman,” says Ulrika, “but because I’m only 19, and have two little children – as well as a nasty herpes infection – I feel as if my life is ruined.”

“My husband is the only man I’ve ever been with,” explains Ulrika. “I grew up with him, he was the big kid on the block and all I ever wanted was to grow up fast so that I could marry him.”

“I trusted him and had no idea that when he was working offshore that he was visiting prostitutes and picking up diseases,” says Ulrika. “How can he do this to us?”

“There’s nothing much to grieve about over the broken relationship,” says Ulrika, “but there’s plenty to grieve over what caused the breakup because herpes is something I’ll never recover from – it’s permanent.”

Read more about Ulrika:

herpes, a dirty disease?

separation endangers kids

The father of Mignon's little boy wasn't just a deadbeat dad, he was also a wife beater and after she separated from him and got him charged with assaualt she turned to her family for support.

"On the day I had to attend court to put my ex-husband behind bars for beating me up," explains Mignon, "I never gave a second thought to my brother's offer to take care of 4-year old son Aaron when my mother said she was too ill to come over."

"Rather than using a day centre, where he would be with strangers, I thought Aaron would be happier with his uncle, my big brother Sam."

"Sam was out of work at the time - and although I hadn't seen very much of him since I got married and had Aaron I had no reason to believe that there was anything seriously wrong with him," explains Mignon.

"Sure," says Mignon, "he smoked marijuana and lived at home with mom and was a bit of a loner, not interested in forming relationships, but he seemed to get on very well with kids and he doted on Aaron."

"It was going to be the very first time Sam and Aaron were to be alone together," says Mignon, "and I suppose I should have been more wary but I was going through a terrible time with Aaron's father and I wasn't thinking right."

"It didn't even cross my mind that Sam or anyone in my family would do anything to harm me or Aaron," says Mignon. "Why would they when they knew how vulnerable we were and how much I counted on them to help me through this awful time."

"If my mother knew something about Sam that I didn't know about then she would have told me, wouldn't she?"

Poor Mignon was to discover differently.

When she returned from a harrowing experience at court she faced a more harrowing experience at home.

"I found Sam pacing up and down outside my house," says Mignon. "He was very agitated and acting strangely."

"I asked him where Aaron was and he told me that the child was sleeping."

"It was 4pm and Aaron is usually playing in the yard at that time and I started to get worried," says Mignon.

"I couldn't find Aaron in his bedroom but I heard crying coming from my bedroom."

"I rushed into the room to find Aaron undressed in a fetal position on my bed sobbing his little heart out," relates Mignon.

"I screamed out to Sam wanting to know what he had done to Aaron and my brother just said that Aaron had been very naughty."

"I had only been away for six hours and in that time God knows what my brother had done to the child."

"I telephoned my mom and told her that Sam had abused Aaron and she said something amazing to me - she said that Sam had been sexually abused when he was Aaron's age."

"It was almost as if she was saying that Sam had a right to abuse Aaron and that I should suffer what she suffered."

"It is ironic that my family failed me in the most horrific way on the very day I went to court to get justice for being beaten up by Aaron's father."

"I thought that if this incident became widely known - by taking Aaron to a doctor for an examination - that I would lose the child to a children's home or something," explains Mignon.

"I could see that Aaron hadn't been physically harmed so he was crying because of psychological trauma."

"I was wrecked," says Mignon. "Aaron's father was a brute, not caring about me or his son, and now my own family showed me they didn't care either."

"I decided on that day to break all ties with my family and to say nothing about this incident to anyone."

"I also vowed never to leave Aaron alone with anyone else ever again - nobody can be trusted, absolutely nobody."

"If this means that I won't be able to go back to work until Aaron is older then that's fine with me," says Mignon. "His safety is far more important than a job and money."

"And I don't care either if I gain a reputation as an over protective mom," says Mignon. "The only people saying such things are likely to be the very people who want to violate our kids."

"I don't intend to let Aaron out of my sight from now on," says Mignon, "and after telling my mother and my brother exactly what lowlife they were I won't be worrying about them trying to come back into my life."

"From now on it's just Aaron and me and the rest of the rotten world can go to hell."

vulnerability to guardian angels

Gemma is separated from a really mean and manipulative guy after a very short marriage – someone who took advantage of her emotionally and financially – and in admitting that her only aim in life is to be happily married with kids she knows she is vulnerable to ‘guardian angels’ (guys who pretend to care, but simply see her as easy prey.

"This time around I truly believe I have gained insight about my vulnerability," says Gemma, "and I don't think it's impossible for me to put the past behind me and move forward with someone new."

"If I tell a new guy about all the guys who've hurt me in the past - and particularly what my estranged husband did to me," explains Gemma, "I'll be exposing myself as an easy target for being screwed again, and I don’t want that.”

"When a relationship ended in the past I tended to pour my heart out to anyone who will listen," sighs Gemma, "and when I'm in this vulnerable state it's too easy to believe that any guy who really listens to me is special, a true guardian angel."

"I'm aware that a new guy who's especially interested in, and sympathetic to, all the ways in which my former guy screwed up my life is going to be particularly dangerous," says Gemma, “and this time around I am going to be very careful about getting involved with another emotional or financial crook posing as my guardian angel.”

"I'm not going to hide my failed marriage – treat it like a 'skeleton' in my closet, something I'm ashamed of,” says Gemma, “because everyone makes mistakes and the worst thing I can do going forward is to present myself as a victim.”

“If I am unlucky enough to meet another screwer, then it's going to be to his advantage to know what my strengths and weaknesses are,” says Gemma, “and while I intend to be truthful about my failed marriage I am certainly not going to expose myself by spilling the many ways in which my estranged husband screwed me emotionally or financially.”

“Confession may be good for the soul,” laughs Gemma, “but if I ever feel that low and vulnerable then I will confess to a priest or to someone with a long and unblemished track record for keeping confidences – not to someone new I hope to marry and have kids with.”

Read more about Gemma:

karmic connection guys

head for the bar, but zip lips!

be mysterious and survive

marriage up in smoke

Meredith and Tony were childhood sweethearts, they married young and produced two lovely children. A loving marriage that should have gone the distance ended horribly when Tony quit smoking and became abusive.

"We were both happy smokers until the anti-smoking campaign took off in the late 1980s, shortly after we were married," explains Meredith. "Faced with strident advertisements showing people with ashtray mouths, lungs dripping with tar and various other deliberately shocking and over-the-top scenes associated with smoking, Tony decided to give up the habit."

"He didn’t discuss his decision with me," says Meredith. "He just came home from work one day and didn’t sit and smoke in front of the television like he usually did. When I sat down next to him and lit up, he called me ‘ashtray mouth’ and got up and walked out the house. That was the pattern of my marriage until Tony finally walked out the door and never came back."

Meredith didn’t mind that Tony had quit smoking, but she did mind that he had not discussed it with her and became not only intolerant towards her smoking but also abusive towards her as a person.

"Tony’s decision to quit smoking was tied up with something far deeper than fear of lung cancer," explains Meredith. "He was tired of the marriage, he was no longer attracted to me, he was having troubles at work, he was losing his hair and by quitting smoking he was distancing himself from me as well as hopefully making himself more attractive to other women."

And other women did become part and parcel of Meredith’s marriage to Tony from then on.

Tony didn’t ask Meredith to stop smoking - on the contrary, he provided the income to buy her cigarettes and actually bought them for her - and it obviously suited him to keep Meredith the way she was so that he could continue to build himself up by putting her down.

The more Tony distanced himself from her and family activities, the more Meredith smoked. Being home all day didn’t help. Having nothing better to do, and being depressed most of the time; Meredith spent her time in front of the television chain-smoking and stuffing herself with junk food.

On the rare occasions when Tony was home for the night, he slept in the spare bedroom. He mainly used the family home to eat and change his clothes, which Meredith would lovingly wash and iron for him. Meredith had become his mother, not his wife.

Ask any woman why she stays in a loveless marriage and you hear a variety of excuses, most of which are expressions of fear of change.

"Tony was providing for me, giving me a semblance of identity," explains Meredith, "and as long as he didn’t stay too long at home and start up the ‘ashtray mouth’ abuse, I guess I was just comfortably numb."

By the time Tony walked out the door for good, Meredith was 49 years old and had become grossly obese as well as a two-pack-a-day smoker. With no income, no skills and in a depressive frame of mind she was virtually unemployable and had to apply for welfare.

Meredith is now an ‘official’ separated woman, going through the stress of the divorce process. Unofficially, of course, Meredith has been separated from Tony for most of her marriage - and when asked whether her life would have been happier had Tony remained a smoker, Meredith answers affirmatively because he had never abused her in any way before he quit.

When asked why she didn’t quit at the same time Tony did, Meredith shrugs and said she wasn’t ready to give up her comfort drug.

Obviously, Meredith could neither quit the marriage nor smoking, and it’s obvious to most people which one was causing her the more damage. With menopause starting, and her adult children making noises about moving out to places of their own, Meredith is due for further shocks to her system - all of which will likely coincide with the divorce. With this sort of stress, Meredith is unlikely ever to be ready to quit smoking or stuffing herself with comfort food.

Far more shocking, though, is Meredith’s admission that her nicotine addiction is driving her into debt.

"My welfare check doesn’t cover the cost of cigarettes," sighs Meredith, "and no matter how much I try to cut my expenses in other areas, I am getting deeper and deeper into debt. I spend three times as much on cigarettes than I do on food, and the more stressed I feel the more I need to smoke and eat. Smoking and eating are the only things that bring me comfort now."

(Meredith's story first appeared as an addictive marriage and is reprinted with permission.)

separating from debt

Bonnie is 26, a factory worker and she's also newly separated. Her brief marriage was a mistake - a costly one - but she's now enjoying her newly reclaimed freedom by sharing an apartment with two female co-workers and watching her pennies.

"My ex-husband got me into debt - he was a gambler," explains Bonnie, "and my focus from now on is getting my financial affairs in order and making sure that I never lose my personal integrity again."

"When the factory management asked us to take a pay cut," says Bonnie, "I was disappointed to lose money and thought I was being screwed all over again but after considering my options I went along willingly with the company’s request."

"I work for monetary reward just like everyone else," explains Bonnie, "but some of my girlfriends work primarily for the most money they can get and preferred to quit rather than accept a pay cut."

In today's globalized, off-shoring economic climate, Bonnie believes that people are lucky if they still have a job, so quitting a job that requires you to make a salary sacrifice is a bit risky. She feels that the chances of finding a similar job with a salary commensurate with what she wants is not high.

"I feel my girlfriends made a mistake," says Bonnie, "because in the long run they may be forced to accept a position with a much lower pay than the one they rejected."

Bonnie admits that it is not fair that companies are laying off staff or requiring salary sacrifices in order to meet their profit margins, but in an employer's market she accepts that we have very little say in the matter.

"There are far too many people in the world looking for work," says Bonnie, "and there are simply not enough jobs available to employ everybody. If you want to survive and lead an independent life - like I do - you've got to be realistic about these things."

"The jobs my girlfriends are quitting will be quickly filled," says Bonnie, "and probably by immigrant workers willing to work for less than the pay cut rate."

The laws of supply and demand operate perfectly these days to ensure that those who are willing to work for less monetary reward are the ones who are winning the jobs.

Bonnie believes that going on strike will not work, either. If your job is one that can be outsourced or given to an immigrant worker, it will be.

Money is not exactly Bonnie’s key motivating factor in turning up at work each day. Being recently separated she needs the distraction that work gives her. It takes her mind off her troubles. And she actually enjoys the working experience.

"I'm well aware that a lot of people only work for money and cannot get enough of it - not because they need it but because it determines their 'worth' as a human being, " says Bonnie. "My ex-husband was like that."

"I don't judge my value as a human being by the amount of money I have or earn," says Bonnie. "I'll never appear on lists of the world's richest nor do I aspire to be on such lists, and as such I'm amenable to a pay cut as long as the cut doesn't deprive me of the ability to pay my bills - and my ex-husband's debts."

"It's this amenability, and these responsibilities, that keep me in a job," says Bonnie. "I guess you can call me a job survivor."

There are many people who work simply to pay the bills - and have a life outside of work - and just as many who work for the love of working, like Bonnie, and really do not care how much they earn just as long as what they get pays the bills.

Faced with the prospect of salary cuts to keep her job, Bonnie accepted the realities of the current economy. She does not love her job so much that she will put in extra hours without pay to help the company boost its profit margin. She would, however, go that extra mile if the company were losing money.

She accepts that if the company goes under, so does she.

It is in Bonnie’s best interests to keep the company afloat during hard times because when the good times return - and they will - the company may reward her loyalty, but there is no guarantee, of course, that this will happen.

"To put in extra hours without pay in expectation of a reward," says Bonnie, "is not a good idea."

Bonnie worries about her girlfriends because they could be out of work for quite a while and the prospect is very real that they will be required to accept a much lower salary than the one they previously took home.

"I am already paying off my ex-husbands bills," sighs Bonnie, "and I don't want to be stuck with the total rent bill, too, if my girlfriends can't pay."

Bonnie also worries about her own job. Even though she accepted a pay cut, her job may not last.

If Bonnie does end up losing her job then she intends to set a minimum figure at which she can survive, and then she’ll go looking for jobs that are personally satisfying to her.

Earning big money often involves stress, deadlines and time constraints, and Bonnie doesn’t want that.

"There are many factors besides money that can make a job enjoyable," says Bonnie, "and if I set my wages low then I have the perfect opportunity to find a type of job that rewards me in other areas."

"After the divorce," confides Bonnie, "I want to enjoy an truly independent life and do something new."

Time is important to her, so she could try a part-time job. She likes learning new skills so she could try a type of job she has never tried before. There are not many staff benefits where she works now, so she could target a place with a social club and great facilities.

Profit sharing? Bonnie accepts that the idea of companies offering stock options as an employment bonus is a good one, but not at the expense of a basic wage.

"Stocks and shares are for gamblers like my ex," sighs Bonnie, "I'm just not interested in taking risks with money."

"It’s interesting," says Bonnie, "that people who work primarily for job satisfaction reap the benefits of that choice whatever state the economy is in. Those who work for financial consideration, and nothing else, are big losers in economic downturns."

Making a valuable contribution to a company, and being rewarded by praise, is far more satisfying to Bonnie than a fistful of dollars.

"Of course," laughs Bonnie, "if you can achieve job satisfaction as well as a six-figure salary then all power to you! For most of us, though, one thing is usually gained at the expense of another and six-figure salaries often lead to health problems, family and relationship problems and spiritual death."

In accepting a pay cut to retain her job, Bonnie can no longer throw away money on little luxuries, but it is a far better proposition than not having a job. And she feels that her girlfriends are going to discover this fact very soon. If they are lucky and get a better paid job, then they may have to put up with a lot of job-related problems that they did not experience at the old place.

"There are some things that money cannot buy," says Bonnie, "and a pleasant job - and a good husband - are two that I've discovered. What with the sexually transmitted debt I got from my ex husband, I consider myself very lucky to have a pleasant job."

"I won't be trying to have it all again," laughs Bonnie. "From now on it's a single independent life for me."

a stress-free separation?

Hazel is 27, separated with one child, and has made so many changes to her life already -- in such a short space of time -- that it’s scary to hear she’s also planning on having another baby. The separation period is traditionally a time of new direction, but it’s not generally the ideal time to be creating another mouth to feed!

Hazel explains her new direction in terms of a spiritual calling.

"Everyone seems to think that spirituality can only be expressed in meditation and other introspective pursuits," explains Hazel, "but for me the epitome of spirituality is expressing love and creating life. I’m following a divine path. Having a baby is what makes me a divine woman."

Hazel is clearly doing so well as a new single working mom that the path she’s traveling is obviously the right one for her.

"My new employer is really enlightened," enthuses Hazel, "and that’s a definite bonus for women planning to expand their families."

"After 12 months of continuous employment I’ll be entitled to 12 weeks of paid maternity leave, and I can also take off as much unpaid leave as I need with the guarantee that my job will be there for me when I return to work after giving birth."

"Isn’t that great?" enthuses Hazel. "With such supportive conditions, why wouldn't I want to have another baby?"

"I deliberately chose this job over others available to me because it supported my future plans," explains Hazel.

Hazel had no hassles when her marriage broke up, and the divorce promises to be just as uneventful.

"My ex and I both have new partners," says Hazel, "and access visits and maintenance payments have gone ahead without a hitch."

"My ex plans on marrying his new partner when the divorce is finalized," says Hazel, "but my new guy and I have agreed on an ‘arrangement’ that allows us to continue leading single lives."

Marriage didn’t suit Hazel, but motherhood did.

"I really enjoyed pregnancy, giving birth and breastfeeding my little girl," says Hazel, "and I am so looking forward to having my second child."

"Being separated and a single mom is no big deal," says Hazel. "Life goes on as normal and the only real hassle in my life right now is having to wait a year before I can get pregnant - but that year will coincide with my divorce so I guess it all works out as it should."

"I feel it's important to give my little girl a brother or a sister," says Hazel, "and it shouldn’t matter that they have different fathers."

"In fact," laughs Hazel, "I believe that having two fathers will be a decided plus in my children’s lives!"

With a new job, a new man and a stress-free separation it looks like Hazel has it all together and can look forward to getting everything she wants.

She has been blessed with the green light all the way.

"When the universe blesses you with a green light, as it has for me," explains Hazel, "it’s not only a sign that you’re on the right spiritual path but it’s also a sign that you must make the most of your good fortune by asking for everything you want."

"Spirituality is not about suffering and deprivation, it’s about joy and creation - and that's why pregnancy and childbirth are so sacred to me."

(Hazel's story first appeared as all she wants is another baby! and is reprinted with permission.)

bad therapy for marital ending

When Rosa's marriage of eighteen years ended she became so upset and out of control that she feared she was losing her mind and, quite naturally, she sought help from her medical practitioner who referred her to a therapist.

"I was very reluctant to see a therapist," explains Rosa. "I didn't want to tell a stranger, even a doctor, the sensitive details of my inner life. I just expected my doctor to give me some pills to calm me down but he insisted I needed professional help. Trusting he had my best interests at heart, I acquiesced to his medical judgment."

"The lady he sent me to see seemed to be very nice," says Rosa, "and as I had gone this far to seek help in getting my life together, I decided to continue seeing her."

"She put me through a series of exercises where I had to keep a journal of everyone I had dealings with and everything I did," says Rosa, "and in doing these exercises I surprised myself in realizing just how crazy my life was. I was dating four guys at the time!"

"She asked about my childhood and marriage and despite my telling her that I had a happy childhood, and seventeen years of happiness in my marriage before my husband went crazy and left me, she maintained that I was kidding myself."

"Hello? She seemed adamant about making me believe that my life up to now had been a lie," says Rosa, "and this just didn't sit well with me because I knew that I had been loved and wanted by my parents and ex husband."

"From the little I knew about therapists they are supposed to be supportive and instrumental in building up self-esteem," says Rosa, "but this lady seemed to be determined to shred me to pieces."

"I started to get suspicious when she talked about another client of hers - a man who had apparently fallen in love with her and was annoying her by calling her at home."

"She suggested that he would make a good friend for me," explains Rosa, "and she kept on asking me to meet with her at a bar where she would arrange to introduce him to me."

"I refused the introduction because frankly I had far too many guys in my life already and I certainly didn't want to get mixed up with someone in therapy - even though I was," explains Rosa. "If anything, I felt I needed to strip people from my life and mix only with reliable and happy people capable of helping me over this period in my life."

"I thought it was very odd and possibly unethical for a therapist to be acting as a matchmaker," adds Rosa. "I wanted to get my life back together so that I could be a good mom for my kids and do well at work, but all this woman was doing was upsetting me more than I was already."

"I may have been out of control and totally scattered when I first saw her," says Rosa, "but after a few weeks of her so-called therapy I was climbing the walls!"

"I guess my displeasure didn't go unnoticed because at the next therapy session I was surprised when the therapist didn't invite me into her office," says Rosa.

"Instead, she sat in the waiting room with me -- actually she sat way across the room from me, rather than next to me -- and proceeded to ask me all the usual questions about what I had been doing since she last saw me."

"I felt terribly uncomfortable and terminated the session early," says Rosa. "I paid her for the hour but decided after that session not to see her again."

"I felt she was playing mind games with me," explains Rosa, "and while that is probably the sort of thing therapists do for a living I didn't feel she was doing it in my best interests."

"Maybe it was all her round about way of getting me to assert myself and face the fact that I deserve better in life than what I had been dished up," says Rosa, "but it all left a bitter taste in my mouth."

"Rather than coming away from a few months of therapy feeling good about myself," explains Rosa, "I ended up feeling absolutely worthless."

"I thought: If a therapist I was paying to help me ended up treating me like dirt, then what hope did I have to get my life together?"

"I spend the rest of the year reading a lot of self-help therapy books and they turned my life around," says Rosa. "Actually, the books helped but it was my own inner guidance that steered me on the right track."

"The therapist actually called me a few times wondering why I hadn't make another appointment," laughs Rosa, "and I told her quite truthfully that I didn't feel the sessions had helped me."

"She told me that I needed to complete the sessions in order to get benefit from them," says Rosa, "but I wasn't going to buy into that nonsense."

"As far as I was concerned she had betrayed my trust and twisted my vulnerable situation to her advantage."

"The self-help books were telling me that I was a beautiful person and deserved a beautiful man and a good life," explains Rosa, "and this was what I needed to hear because it matched what my inner guidance was telling me all along. How silly that I needed someone else to tell me what I knew already!"

"Everything that the therapist had told me was designed to make me feel bad about myself," says Rosa, "and if I had continued with her sessions I would have probably ended up penniless and totally dependent upon her for any sort of worth."

"I suppose therapists have a vested interest in keeping their clients feeling bad about themselves," sighs Rosa, "but I didn't go there feeling bad about myself. I went there feeling bad about the lousy people in my life - and she became just one more lousy person in my life that I needed to get rid of!"

"My childhood had been happy, and my marriage had lasted seventeen happy years before my husband went through the mid-life crisis and went off the rails."

"By robbing me of those memories of happiness -- trying to get me to believe that it was all a lie --that therapist was acting, in my opinion, in an unethical manner."

"I thought about reporting her to the professional body, to safeguard some other poor soul from falling into her clutches" says Rosa, "but I decided against it."

"Let's face it," laughs Rosa, "I was a client, a woman with emotional problems, and who do you think would be more believable - the crazy therapist or me?"

"If problems can be scaled," says Rosa, "then that therapist had far more problems than I had. People in positions of power who use and abuse vulnerable women are sick."

"I'm back on track now and feeling good about myself," confides Rosa. "and the next time I feel ill or upset about anything I'll be turning to self-help books rather than doctors!"

(Rosa's story first appeared as the therapist and is reprinted with permission.)

the butt of cruel jokes

Up until her children left home three years ago, June endured eleven post-divorce years of abject misery because of constant interference from an abusive ex who manipulated her through the children, regularly defaulting on access visits and child maintenance and poisoning the children's minds against her and the few men she had dated.

"Becoming an empty nester ended all that misery for me," says June, "but irreparable damage had been done. My life is ruined."

June explains that her miseries started when she was about 40 and first felt affronted by her husband's cruel ageist and sexist jokes. Cruel jokes about older women are popular among most men, but women generally never take much notice of these jokes until they reach an age at which they suddenly realize that the jokes are directed at them.

Her husband thought it was very funny to humiliate her by telling such jokes in company, and he paid for this and his other follies with divorce. However, June, now 56, did not get away easily. She paid for her assertiveness in divorcing her husband fourteen years ago by becoming the butt of the cruelest joke imaginable.

During the prime of her life, from 42 to 53, June lived on the edge and often considered suicide as a way out of her misery. She couldn't see an end to the vendetta her ex was conducting against her. She felt that he would carry on until the men in white or the undertakers carried him, or her, away.

The misery she suffered at the hands of a nasty and vindictive ex totally overshadowed her 40s and early 50s. She looks more like 76 than 56. Her hair is white, her eyes are dull, her complexion is ashen and she has that jittery mannerism that is more common in elderly women than a fifties woman.

It's easy to say that the option is always there for women in June's former situation to pack up, change their name, leave the country or do whatever they have to do in order to get a vindictive ex off their backs, but as June explained this was not an option for her.

"It would have meant sacrificing the children," says June. "My ex had visitation rights and the only way I could have escaped from him was to give him the children. I couldn't do that because he didn't want the children. He was just using them to ruin my life. And he succeeded not only in ruining my life, but the children's, too. They've turned out to be as screwed up as he is."

Women who gain custody of children after a marital split rarely gain respite from the children's father, and this constant harassment not only deprives these women from enjoying a normal relationship with a man but also a normal relationship with their children. June is now resigned to never seeing her children again.

"They are ashamed of me," explains June. "One of them calls me an 'old bag' and other pejorative names that their father called me."

When children are constantly subjected to hearing their father deride their mother, it's a rare child who can see the injustice of the situation and want to put it right.

June says that all her suffering was wasted.

"I might as well have put the kids into care and fled, cutting all ties with them as well as their father," sighs June. "It will silly of me to expect the children to appreciate that I remained their mom. I should have realized that their father would have more sway over them than I would"

If her children are more concerned about what she looks like than what's in her heart, then that's due to their father's indoctrination and there's nothing much she can do about it. And yet, it is not just her ex-husband who poisoned her children's minds against June. The youth culture, and general lack of respect for older women, is to blame, too.

June's ex-husband very clearly succeeded in increasing his power by decreasing hers. What he did to her wasn't illegal, and because it is sanctioned by a male dominated society it wasn't considered to be immoral either.

"To everyone else he was an aggrieved dad," explains June. "I initiated the divorce and split the family. Therefore, I was considered to be the bad person and in punishing me he was seen as giving me what I deserved. Nobody cared that the kids were getting screwed up in the process."

"He was driving me mad, and screwing up the kids," explains June, "but everyone else saw him as a good guy. Nobody cared about the reason why I left him. Nobody cared that he was abusing me. He managed to convince everyone that I had left him and broken his poor little heart for no good reason whatsoever. "

As long as these guys have a mantle of approval from society, they can carry on forever. And bitter and twisted ex-husbands and ex-lovers often do.

When asked why, at the age of 56 and after three years of freedom from the kids, she has not picked herself up and started a new life - one far away from her ex, her children and all the bad memories - June shrugs and says that she just doesn't have any energy left.

"As long as I they leave me alone I feel safe," says June. "The hell is over and I just want to enjoy peace and quiet now."

When women use the word 'safe' it usually indicates that they are otherwise living in fear, and this is exactly how June is living despite the fact that the children - the only 'hold' her ex had over her - are no longer in the equation.

June said that she could not have lived with herself had she given up her children and fled fourteen years ago, and yet by doing what she considered to be the ethical and natural thing for a mother to do she exposed herself to further abuse.

the maltese postman

Gillian is 42, but looks 22, and is childless and newly separated from her husband. She found the tranquility she needed to get herself together, put the past behind her and make plans for the future by taking a trip to Malta.

"The tiny island of Malta basks in the warmth in the Mediterranean Sea and once played a strategic part in the various military operations of the last century - particularly for Great Britain," says Gillian, "and it has since become a delightful tourist resort for Britons involved in more personal operations like mine."

"I desperately needed a diversion from all the thoughts that I just couldn’t still in my mind - thoughts of my estranged husband, Joe, with his new woman; thoughts of my lovely new home that was now up for sale; thoughts of all the pitying faces at work and at the club when knowledge of my marriage break-up became known; and thoughts of my parents who took me back home to live with them and, as expected, couldn’t wait to remind me that they had warned me not to marry Joe."

"I highly recommend that newly separated women take a break - anywhere - in order to muster strength for what lies ahead," says Gillian, "and Malta is ideal because just about everybody there speaks English, if not as their primary language then as a very close second."

"I didn't want the hassle of using my schoolgirl French or German," says Gillian. "I just wanted to get away, and far enough away to be foreign. Know what I mean?"

"Some cynics would say that once you've seen one Mediterranean island you've seen the lot," says Gillian, "and I tend to agree in part but what was most memorable about being in Malta was not the falcons -- I doubt that there are any on the island -- but the people. In particular, the Maltese Postman."

It was a warm late October afternoon and Gillian visited a small post-office on the outskirts of the capital city, Valetta, to get some stamps. Behind the counter was George.

Delighted to meet an off-season tourist, and bored with his work, George insisted on closing the post-office and showing her around his island.

Gillian thinks that George had done this sort of thing lots of times before, but having no fear whatsoever that his intentions were anything other than honorable she felt quite safe being shown around the island by him.

"He was old enough to be my father - not that an age difference deters older men, or younger women if it comes to that - but there was something about him that assured me that his first love was Malta and he wanted to share that love with anybody who was interested. And I was."

"George was a mine of information about the history of the island and its significance during both world wars," says Gillian. "Apparently huge fleets had anchored in Valetta Bay and George remembered the island being full of servicemen on shore leave when he was a boy."

Had Gillian taken a notebook with her she would now have a unique story of one man's life on Malta during an exciting time in its history, but alas all she has are shreds of information gleaned from the hours that she and the Maltese Postman had spent together.

After a delightful few hours zooming her around the island, George delivered Gillian back to her hotel, safe and sound, just like a good postman delivers a letter.

She cannot imagine very many postmen in any part of the world having the authority to shut up shop in order to show a tourist around, so Gillian felt honored by the experience and hopes that nobody had wanted his postal services while he was AWOL.

Maybe it could only have happened in Malta?

Gillian’s story about George lacks the sexual liaison that so many separated women feel compelled to indulge in after a marriage fails - similar to that portrayed in the Shirley Valentine film - yet it shows how a simple encounter with a nice man can diffuse a lot of emotional tension.

"There are nice men out there," says Gillian, "and I’m not going to allow a failed marriage spoil the rest of my life. I am going to love again!"

Yet it wasn’t just Gillian’s experience with George that changed her attitude.

"I experienced a spiritual rebirth during my stay on the island of Malta," explains Gillian. "There was something about the island that made it so easy for me to put everything into perspective."

aromatic memories

Nigella's divorce is coming up soon, and with a year of separation behind her she confesses that her survival during this period was due entirely to a very special man.

"While other people remember loved ones by photographs, gifts or songs," says Nigella, "I remember them by associated aromas."

"Fresh baked bread reminds me of my deceased grandmother, and the perfume of Anais Anais reminds me of Billy -- a very special man I met shortly after my husband had walked out on me and the kids for his secretary."

"I was an emotional mess and a girlfriend had nagged me into joining a ‘parents without partners’ group and it was the best thing I ever did because even if I had never met Billy at the group it was good for me and the kids to get out and about."

"The first of the group's activities I participated in was a picnic where there were more kids than adults," laughs Nigella. "The kids had a great time and I immediately felt relaxed with the other parents because they were just like me - sad and lonely."

"Billy came to the third function I attended - a small party at one of the parent's houses where the kids had a room to themselves."

"He wasn't a parent himself," laughs Nigella, 'he was just a single man that the hostess had dragged along for the occasion."

“I am so glad she did!”

"Our first outing alone with Billy was just before Xmas and on our way home from the movies Billy stopped at the shops and bought us all some presents. He had even paid for them to be especially wrapped!"

"My present was an expensive bottle of Anais Anais perfume," sighs Nigella, "and its perfume filled the car as soon as I had opened the bottle."

"He had brought a huge ray of sunshine into our lives - and it remained long after he left."

"I still carry that bottle of Anais Anais perfume in my handbag," smiles Nigella, "and every time I open it I remember Billy and the joy he brought into our lives."

Read more about Nigella's story:

perfume reminder of special friend

flash in the pan guys

the beat goes on

Joan, 35, married a musician old enough to be her father. She had what she thought was an amicable separation with him but by staying in the same marital apartment block with a male neighbor with whom her husband remains friendly her amicability was stretched to the limit.

"My husband, Ken, is a huge Beatles fan and believes, like I do, that war is wrong and that people should love one another," says Joan. "The Beatles said it all in their classic song, All You Need is Love, but the type of love the Beatles sang about is not exactly the type you'd apply to everyone."

"I was incredibly naive and idealistic when I met Ken and he seduced me into having sex with him and I hated it," sighs Joan. "Nevertheless, I carried my loving idealism to extremes by marrying a man for whom I merely felt a sort of cosmic brotherly or neighborly love."

"It took me a long time to realize that some people are totally unlovable in any sense of the word," laughs Joan. "and while it was never in my being to hate Ken, the experience of being trapped in a miserable marriage with a drunkard and pot-head soon cured me of idealism."

"Because neither of us wanted to hurt our son, we agreed to separate on amicable terms," says Joan, "but the big mistake I made was to stay in the same apartment with a neighbor who remained friendly with Ken. It was a cheap apartment and far too convenient for work and shopping for me to move, but had I known what my ex was up to I would have been out of there like a shot."

"The neighbor Ken remained in contact with was an older man, a Vietnam vet, who lived with his mother and had mental problems," says Joan, "and when Ken visited to pick up our son for visitation rights he'd always drop by and see this guy."

"I never bothered too much about this," says Joan. "As long as peace prevailed - which it did after a while - I didn't care much what Ken did, but I did get suspicious when he started chiding me for not being neighborly towards this old guy and his ancient mother."

"The guy and his mother were creepy and I avoided them as much as I could," says Joan, "and I got really scared when the old guy started bailing me up at the front door with a silly smile on his face when I'd come home from work."

"He always seemed to be hanging around outside my apartment when I had visitors," says Joan, "and one day I even saw him rifling through my garbage bin."
"When I caught him at my mailbox one evening I confronted him and told him not to touch my mail," says Joan, "and he went on a long and rambling sermon about the evils of divorce and the joys of love and marriage."

"Hello! Where have I heard that garbage before!"

"I just brushed him off as a loony," says Joan, "but later it occurred to me that this guy was not only spying on me but also making a play for me, probably encouraged by the fact that I had married an older man -- maybe the dope thought all old men turned me on -- or maybe he had been encouraged by Ken himself. Why else would Ken tell me to be more 'neighborly'?"

"The next time I saw Ken I told him that the old guy was annoying me and I requested that he stopped visiting him and putting ideas into the old man's addled brain," says Joan, "and Ken had the cheek to start spouting all that All You Need is Love rubbish that he'd used on me years before."

"Despite my anger I had to laugh at the prospect of loving in any way whatsoever that deranged old man," says Joan. "Ignore, yes, but have a friendly neighborly relationship with, no way!"

"Ken seems to believe that if you're not in a loving relationship with everyone around you then you're in a hateful relationship with them," sighs Joan. "That's magical thinking - the sort of magical mushroom thinking that inspired his heroes the Beatles to write All You Need is Love. And when Ken talks about love, he means s-e-x, and that's exactly what the old neighbor had in mind, too. It's repulsive!"

"God know what Ken had said to that guy," sighs Joan. "I should have known better than to think that he would get on with his life without causing me further trouble."

"To me, indifference is the opposite to love, not hate," says Joan. "Hate is an aspect of love, a incredibly strong feeling that you can only feel for someone you might otherwise love. I don't hate anyone! I love only a few people. I like a lot of people. I am totally indifferent to everyone else."

"Finally, when I got really exasperated with Ken and the ridiculous turn his conversation was taking," says Joan, "he uttered a word that I particularly dislike - 'sorry'."

"Sorry is a word that always follows abuse - I lived with it daily in my marriage - and I don't want to hear it any more, especially from him," says Joan. "When his message was All You Need is Love, it seemed incongruous he would upset me and then say sorry. What's loving about that sort of behavior?"

"It worked on me when I so young and so green I might as well have been a lettuce," laughs Joan, "but now that I'm older and wiser I can't stand the Beatles and their All You Need is Love rubbish."

"I moved out of the apartment shortly after that episode," says Joan, "but can you believe that Ken used his visitation rights to get to know my new neighbors?"

"The other day one of them said to me: 'he's such a nice guy, why are you divorcing him?'," sighs Joan. "I kept my mouth shut - for my son's sake - but I'm beginning to think that Ken is going to continue to drive me nuts divorce or no divorce."

mad cows

Delores is 48 and has been separated from an abusive husband for five months. She has custody of their two children, plus a child from a previous marriage, and they all moved into a separate apartment when her husband became so violent that she feared for their lives.

"Unfortunately, my life became even more terrifying when I left my husband because he knows where I live and hounds me every night," explains Delores. "There is no peace in my life - or my children's - and I despair of ever being able to live a normal life again."

A restraining order didn’t restrain her husband, and poor Delores began to fall apart - which, of course, was his intention.

“All of this would have been bad enough had I not been working," says Delores, “but I was doing my best to hold down a customer service position and my usual friendly and calm service was sadly deteriorating.”

‘I know that every workplace seems to have either a sad sack or a mad cow, or both, " says Delores, “and I am just mortified that my estranged husband turned up at my workplace and made me look and act like the maddest cow you’ve ever seen.”

"The separation period is volatile for most women," explains Delores, "and divorce does not always close the book on a violent marriage. I just hope that one day all this madness will end and that my estranged husband gets help for his mental problems.”

Read more by Delores on this situation:

a wounded, divided life

menopausal mad cow

Sad sacks at work

mad old cows at work

declarations of war

When one person in a failed marriage refuses to separate peacefully, preferring to hassle the other person in punishment for daring to end the relationship, Athena, 44, believes that a declaration of war has been issued and even though it is not expressed as such it nevertheless exists.

"My husband effectively declared war on me when I could no longer stand his abuse and asked for a separation," says Athena. "I should have been alerted to an upcoming war - after all, an abuser never gives up, it's the nature of the beast - but I was protected by law and believed I would be safe."

"Because of continuing parental rights," says Athena, "I was forced by law to endure his continuing presence in my life via his access visits with our son, and while I could tolerate this - and indeed welcomed a break from parenting to have a life of my own - I did not expect him to stoop so low that he would be willing to destroy the little boy's life in order to punish me."

"The financial insults, and there were plenty of them, didn't hurt me at all," says Athena. "Sometimes the child maintenance money arrived, sometimes it didn't. He refused to put the money in a banking account. He insulted me by shoving it in my hand, as if he was paying a prostitute rather than giving the money to help support his son."

"The money he gave me was barely enough to cover my boy's expenses," says Athena, "but to have changed the maintenance payments would have required a court appearance and I didn't wish to beg or have further dealings with him other than was necessary."

"The war was on his part, and his part alone," says Athena. "I just got on with my life and did my best to ignore the gross inequalities in our financial situations. I was poor, but I was free."

"It was awful the way he insulted me by trying to poison other people's minds against me - including my family – and most of all our little boy’s mind," says Athena. "His poisoning behavior not only isolated me from support - forcing me to find new friends - but it also made me realize how shallow human nature can be.”

“Even though a lot of former friends may have drifted off because they didn't want to get involved, some definitely shunned me."

"Nobody really wins any war," sighs Athena, "and the war my ex-husband declared after we separated -- using our son as pawn -- was a losing situation for us all."

"Get married again? I don't think so!"

Read more of Athena’s story:

child poisoning access visits

postal harassment

Alice is 31, lives alone in a small apartment and earns an above-average income. She has been separated from her possessive husband for seven months, and hardly a day goes by without her friendly postman delivering a manipulative letter from her soon-to-be-divorced husband either begging her to change her mind or cursing her to hell.

When the letters first arrived, Alice opened them and read them but they upset her so much that she soon stopped reading them.

"All of them were designed to manipulate my feelings, to control me, to make me feel guilty or simply to annoy me," sighs Alice.

Alice then started to put all of his letters into the garbage bin unopened. She felt it was useless informing her estranged husband verbally or in writing that she did not wish to receive further letters from him. And she felt that it was equally useless to send the letters back to him ‘return to sender’.

"To respond in either of these manners," explains Alice, "would let him know that I was upset, thus giving him the reaction he wants."

When Alice informed her lawyer about what was happening, he advised her to keep the letters for evidence should a restraining order be necessary some time in the future. She then started to put all of his letters into a box and stored the box in an out-of-sight place.

Alice wasn’t too happy about keeping the letters, and it embarrassed her enormously to think that one day any of these letters could be read publicly in a court.

"Some men," says Alice, "are so intent upon manipulating their estranged wives that they actually want to appear in court - they want to drag their ex wives down as far as they can."

Finally, Alice got sick and tired of these letters arriving in her mailbox.

"I thought of asking a neighbor, a friend or a relative to sort my mail and remove the offensive letters before I got home from work," says Alice, "but I thought better of it. The less people knew of my predicament, the better. Who knows who might bear a secret grudge against me and cause me further grief?"

Alice’s brilliant solution to the postal pestering was to get a Post Office Box. She advised all necessary people and authorities of her change of mailing address, and then she paid a nominal fee to her Post Office to hold all mail that was posted to her home address. The mail hold option was for a maximum permissible period of one year, by which time Alice’s divorce would be settled and she hoped by then that her estranged husband would have got a life.

"If all else fails," says Alice, "I have the option to move and not leave a forwarding address, but I’d only contemplate such a drastic move if the stress was making me ill or interfering with my work."

So far, Alice has been very careful not to give her estranged husband the reaction he wants, and while it would be nice to believe that when you refuse to play games with a manipulative ex-partner he will eventually give up and go away, the statistics show otherwise - particularly for women who must continue dealing with an ex-partner because of access to children or maintenance payments.

Alice is relieved that her marriage had been short-lived, there were no children and the pre-nuptial agreement guaranteed no loss of assets, but with a pathologically possessive ex-husband she has good reason to remain afraid.

"I’m quite aware that some women continue to be harassed by their ex-husbands long after the divorce is finalized," says Alice, "and some have the awful fate of being hounded until they or their ex-husbands are carried away by the men in white or the undertakers. It’s a very unpleasant situation."

"The option is always there for women in real trouble to pack up, change their name, leave the country or do whatever they have to do in order to get the ex off their backs," says Alice, "but that option is often not available for separated women with children."

"I don’t blame women who thwart a manipulative estranged husband by getting themselves a new guy as quickly as possible," says Alice, "preferably somebody bigger, stronger and hairier than their ex. It is a very effective deterrent."

"And yes," sighs Alice, "I considered that option, too, but after my recent experience with a unhappy marriage I prefer to keep away from all men!"

assertiveness therapy

Charlotte is a lovely 52-year old woman, she has a lot of things going for her, yet her sweet and complaint nature was so horribly manipulated by her now estranged husband and their adult boys that she had to seek therapy.

"When I saw how my boys had grown up to be as abusive towards me as their dad, and had organized the house to suit themselves, I felt like an unpaid housekeeper in a men's domain," says Charlotte. "They never helped me around the house or listened to anything I said. They twisted all my words and made me look a fool."

"I needed to separate, to get away and find myself before I went mad," says Charlotte. "I'm in therapy, learning how to assert myself, and I hope that this new skill will help me find a satisfying job--not involving housework--and a decent new guy."

"Yes," laughs Charlotte. "I want to get married again. Why wouldn't I want to spend my sunset years with a guy who cherishes me?"

One of the first things Charlotte learned in therapy was to be aware of conversational manipulation, which can include something as seemingly innocuous as someone changing the subject. By changing the subject the manipulator prevents her from continuing a line of discussion that is important to her and damaging to the other party.

"If the subject is really important to me," says Charlotte, "then I must refuse to be side-tracked. I must assert myself, and return immediately to the topic I want to discuss. If my husband or the boys persist in changing the subject then I must stop the conversation immediately and advise them that I will put my case in writing and will have no further dealings with them until my issues are addressed."

Another clever conversational screw Charlotte is picking up on is the one where people make you repeat what you say in an attempt to make you look foolish.

"Unless the culprit is really deaf," says Charlotte, "I now recognize this ploy and suggest very sweetly that he or she needs their ears testing. There was a time when I used to fall for this trick time and time again with my husband. Now, I refuse to repeat what I say if I’m reasonably sure that I was heard the first time."

Silence, of course, is an age-old conversational screwing tactic. It is designed to infuriate you, test your limits and see if you will lose your temper. Faced with a stone deaf wall from her husband and boys every time she wanted help around the house, Charlotte often lost her temper. They gained power and she lost it. Given the choice to ignore the silence and chat away merrily - or to decide that these power games are not worth dealing with - Charlotte preferred to walk away and stay away.

A particular conversational screwing problem for Charlotte is her estranged husband’s use of unwarranted emotional outbursts - anger or tears - to unnerve her and distract her from a situation where he was at a disadvantage. Rather than being manipulated into feeling fear or sympathy when he uses anger or tears to unnerve her and distract her from a position of power, Charlotte now sees these ploys for what they are and is learning to ignore them.

"My boys are also particularly good at using anger to manipulate me," sighs Charlotte, "I suppose it’s a trait they learned from their father. I just hope I can teach them to respect women before they get married and start repeating history with their own wives."

Other conversational manipulations Charlotte is learning to deal with are situations where vital information is withheld from her, either allowing her to find out the truth from someone else or deliberately choosing to divulge the truth to her at the worst possible time when she is unable to protect herself. Rather than trusting people, Charlotte now makes a point to ask lots of questions and get things down in writing if necessary.

The main problem Charlotte has with her estranged husband is dealing with his bad language, insults and verbal intimidation. Charlotte has learned that this type of conversational screwing is done by very, very small men who need to build themselves up by putting her down. Nobody can put her down without her permission, and now that Charlotte is seeing things from a different perspective she is learning to laugh at verbal intimidation from him. She is learning to see it as a sort of backhanded compliment.

"If I weren’t the lovely lady that I am," she laughs, "he wouldn’t be attempting to put me down. Right?"

Charlotte is looking for a decent job right now and is doing her best to put her new assertiveness training into practice. Interviews typically place the interviewee in a position of powerlessness, and Charlotte is gaining a lot of confidence from being able to spot a manipulative interviewer from the start. Twice already she has stopped an interview in mid-progress and said that she was no longer interested in the job. She doesn’t want to work for a company that use screwing tactics on prospective employees.

"I put up with too much from my husband to ever want to be put down again," asserts Charlotte, "and now that I’m separated from him I’m becoming a new woman.

"There's a new guy waiting for me - I know it - when I've totally transformed myself into an assertive woman."

mrs. robinson

Cathy is 23 and is separated from her much older husband - a control freak - who had been a friend of her mother's.

"She had probably wanted to marry him herself," explains Cathy. "but the next best thing - to keep him in her life - was to marry me off to him!"

"Apparently this guy had felt sorry for my mom - a widow raising a kid on her own - and he had given her a job as a cleaner," explains Cathy. "He was a father figure for me for many years - but all the time he was waiting for me to grow up so he could own me."

"I don't think any money exchanged hands, but in effect my mom sold me to him, saying he was a good catch and would ensure I got a good education and a good life - whatever that was," sighs Cathy. "Sure, I had all the trappings of a good life, but it was not until I met Mick, an 18 year fellow university student, that I first understood what love or happiness really was."

"Mick and I fell madly in love and when it looked like we were close to becoming lovers I asked my husband for a divorce."

"He went berserk and called my mother over and the two of them verbally tore me to shreds - wanting to know all about Mick - where he lived - who his parents were and that sort of thing."

"They went over to Mick's house that night and confronted him and his mother," says Cathy, "and demanded their co-operation in getting me to do what they wanted."

"My husband came home, smug, and laughed at me, calling me a "Mrs Robinson", a cradle snatcher for wanting a little boy."

"I didn't understand who Mrs Robinson was," sighs Cathy, "but when I did hear Simon and Garkunkel's song Mrs Robinson from the film The Graduate -- in which an older woman seduces a younger man -- I couldn't believe that my husband could be such a hypocrite. Mick and I were closer in age than he and I were!"

"If anyone was a cradle snatcher - he was - but he failed to see the irony of the situation, or didn't think it applied to men."

"The next day I saw Mick and we decided to run away together - throw in our university careers - cut ourselves off from our families - and start a new life together."

"We left notes for our families so they wouldn't report us missing, and took off that afternoon - with the minimum of clothes - and drove all through the night, wanting to get as far away from everyone as possible."

"We consummated our love for the first time in a motel miles away from care," says Cathy, "but the next day Mick had a pang of conscience and called his mom to tell her that he was okay."

"What he didn't tell me was that he had told her where we were staying and the next thing I knew a policeman called at the motel and told us to go home."

"I couldn't believe that Mick had betrayed me," sighs Cathy. "And yet he was as much under his mother's thumb as I had been."

"He looked at me and cried - telling me how sorry he was - that we should go home and do things properly - whatever that meant ," says Cathy, "and I knew that he was telling me that he was torn between me and his mom and that she had won."

"I left him that day", sighs Cathy. "I took a Greyhound bus to the next city, found a job at a diner and started a new life of my own. There was no way I was going back to my mother and husband.

"Sure I'm upset that I couldn't finish my university course," says Cathy, "but I've got the rest of my life ahead of me."

"I wish I had run away from home at 15 and taken my chances," says Cathy, "but I was too much under my mom's thumb and scared by all the things she used to tell me about the big bad world."

"Well, as it turned out, she and my husband were the big bad world as far as I'm concerned and I can't wait for the divorce to come through."

"No, I don't expect to ever see Mick again," says Cathy. "He's got five more years to go before he's capable of cutting ties with his mom and in that respect maybe I was a Mrs Robinson -- but I sure as hell wasn't old enough to be his mother like the woman in the film."

when I'm 64

Jade grew up loving the Beatles and their songs - especially When I'm 64 - but having reached 50 with a broken marriage, a daughter who no longer wants to know her and her mop-topped idols either dead or in much the same trouble as herself, she has realistically faced the fact that nobody is going to love her when she's 64!

"I think that when the Beatles were writing that song in the 1960s they used their parents or the older generation as a yardstick," says Jade, "but a lot has changed in forty years and I doubt whether very many people will still be in love and bouncing grandkids on their knees when they're 64 these days."

"My parents aren't together any more - and they're not much older than the Beatles," says Jade, "so staying together until you're 64 must be a pre-WWII thing."

"It's a beautiful song - full of love and warmth - so different from the blatantly sexual nature of the other Beatles songs," says Jade, "and that's why it always had special meaning for me."

"I truly thought that my marriage would last the distance and Tim and I would still be in love when we're 64."

"Actually, Tim and I lasted longer than our friends," explains Jade. "All of them were divorced in their 40s. Tim and I felt very threatened by it all, and vowed to stay together, but eventually Tim strayed and left me."

"I'm nine months into the separation and sinking fast," sighs Jade. "I can't compete with the 25-yr old Tim fell for. She was our daughter's best friend and the whole sordid business not only split up Tim and I but the whole family, too."

"My daughter doesn't want to know any of us any more, and I don't blame her," sighs Jade. "I suppose she thinks it was my fault, in some way, for not being attractive enough for her father. It doesn't sound fair, but that's how things are these days. Everyone is crazy."

"Tim wants to remarry, but I'm thoroughly disillusioned by love and marriage and who would have me in any case," sighs Jade. "I really believed that love was forever and that Tim and I would be like the Darby and Joan in the Beatles When I'm 64 song."

"Of course, some of the Beatles themselves divorced and remarried," says Jade, "and Paul McCartney is now going through a separation, too, after starting a second family in his 60s. Maybe the whole thing was an illusion from the start. But I bought it!"

"I think the words of the song should be changed to fit the reality of the 21st century," laughs Jade. "When you marry at 18 or 20, like Tim and I did, you should be asking will you still love me when I'm 44, not 64!"

"I really don't fancy the chances of Tim's second marriage lasting until he's 64," muses Jade, "but that's a chance he's willing to take."

"I couldn't bear the thought of marrying again and then finding myself alone and unloved at 64."

"It's bad enough at 50," sighs Jade, "but at 64 it would be the worst thing on earth to have your marriage fall apart."