The end of my marriage

Looking back now, I cannot say that I really blame him.  I must have been a nightmare to live with and with my aversion to sex; I had very little left to offer him.  So he walked out on me.  Quite literally.   Went to a party one night and just didn’t come back.

I was absolutely devastated.  I was nothing without him.  I had no reason for my existence any longer.  

To make matters worse, my parents came to collect my sons and take them back to Redcliff, to take some of the pressure off me.  But all they did was remove something that might have given me a reason to go on.  Instead I turned my eyes inward and judged myself.  Very harshly.  I came up wanting in every way.  I was fat, ugly, worthless.  I had nothing to offer.  Yet again, I don’t know how I would have survived if it had not been for the intervention of a friend, who pulled me up, almost by the hair and dragged me back into the world.

I stayed in Bulawayo on my own for three months.  We were in the middle of a major musical production at the theatre and I was involved providing backing vocals, as well as dancing and taking care of the choreography.  I did not want to let anyone down, no matter how much it hurt me.  And that was when I really perfected my performance.  

Inside I was dying, but on the outside I was bright and breezy.  No-one knew what was going on inside my head.  And feeling that the theatre needed me helped me to go on.  Each night of the show I could become the 'other' Bella, the one who was confident and full of life.  And after each show I walked out of the theatre and turned straight back in to the real Bella. 

I had never realised that it was possible to feel so lonely, useless and unwanted.  This has to be one of the lowest points in my life.  How I kept going, I don't really know, but looking back I think my main motivation was my sons.  They were still so young and needed me.  They had effectively lost their father and it would be unbearable for them to lose me at that point.  Even I could see that one parent, even when that one was me, was better than none.