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Clare Mackintosh - US

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The end of the affair

February 17, 2010 By Clare Mackintosh

I should put this into context. I have never been dumped. Never has anyone ever dared to dump me. I was stood up once by a student from Luton, but even that turned out to be a misunderstanding. I just didn’t think I was the sort of girl who gets dumped, but clearly things have changed…

I came home from work to find my husband in contemplative mode at the kitchen table, wine glass in hand and a second waiting for me. Clearly he had bad news for me.

He broke it gently, to give him his credit, holding my hand as I sobbed into my Chardonnay, and telling me it was all going to be okay.

“Is there someone else?”

“No, there’s no-one else honey”

“We have to be together when we tell the children. They’ll be devastated”

“They’ll be fine, honey – they’ll soon forget how things were”

“But they’ll think it’s their fault”. I anguished over the thought of my precious babies, hurt and confused in the knowledge they were being abandoned.

“It’s no-one’s fault, honey, we’ll explain they’re still loved just as much as they’ve ever been”

I couldn’t believe how calmly he was dealing with this; the end of a relationship I thought was working so perfectly. How could I have been so wrong? I wondered what I could have done differently; should I have been less demanding? Have I been putting my career before my family? I’ve been so unbearably smug about it; gloating to my friends about how good things are, and basking in their unmasked envy.

“so when…?” I tailed off, unable to articulate the question to which I dreaded the answer.

“Not straight away, but we need to start making arrangements”.

He was right, of course. No point in putting off the inevitable. After all, good nannies don’t grow on trees.

To put this post into context you can read all about how the nanny started, how I worried she might cheat on us, and how I worked out how great she really was. And now she’s leaving us. Bitch.

Filed Under: Parenting

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