The seeds of doubt

I couldn't quite put my finger on when it started exactly - but early in 2004 he mentioned this womans name over and over and over again. Someone new had started at work, someone he said he didn't really like. She was snotty and stuck up and aloof. No-one really liked her he said when she had been at the company for about 3 months.

He started working more closely with her, to help her develop a plan for acquiring new clients. Or so it seemed. She was a divorcee, with a child. She had had a hard time said my husband. I didn't know this then, but I do now - she saw my husband as her saviour, he saw himself as her Knight in Shining Armour.

In the spring of that year as my youngest daughter turned 7 I had this "sixth sense" about my husband. It manifested itself as a danger. I can't explain that any further except to say it felt like a very real threat.

During 2004, that sense perpetuated itself - my husband was still loving and very connected to me, and I could never, would never conceive that he was being unfaithful. Not my fantastic husband......

We had married in 1995 - after knowing each other for about 8 years, and living with each other for almost 4 of those. We have two beautiful, gifted and talented daughters. We were the couple that everyone wanted to know, witty, entertaining, had a solid, loving, equitable relationship and had a lot of good friends who often turned to one or the other of us for advice, support, help, whatever. I too believed that we had a marriage to savour and take pride and joy in – of course we had things that went wrong from time to time, miscarriages, illnesses, difficult pregnancies, arguments, and the usual small differences that occur in most relationships and that don't actually appear to create rifts - quite the opposite - its these experiences that develop and strengthen relationships, create closeness and confidence in each other - isn't it?

Marriages ebb and flow, but I was not unduly concerned about any apsect of our marriage, our relationship or that our relationship was rocky in a way; nor did my husband give me any reason to think he was not happy. I would actually say quite the opposite in fact - we talked about the future, our plans, our children's plans, he was loving and engaged in our relationship - there was absolutely nothing in our relationship that felt wrong, except for this nagging doubt in my mind, that I still couldnt yet put my finger on..........................