*Excerpt*
Iris Barton learns that there is 'life after divorce' when she embarks on a journey of self-discovery. With her five-year-old son in tow, she begins to pick up the pieces that her cheating husband left behind. Her shattered confidence lies...
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"Just put it down over there," I instructed, pointing to the floor in the kitchen.
The bloke from the removal company did as I asked, placing the box labelled “fragile” down by the cooker.
I glanced around at all the brown cardboard boxes, wondering how we ended up in this mess. It wasn't like my husband gave me any choice. Andrew was god knows where, living it up with his mistress. It happened three weeks ago. I caught them red-handed in our bed, the same bed he made love to me in the night before. It was awful. I forgot my phone when I dashed out to take our son to school and rushed home, hoping to surprise him. We rarely spent any quality time together. He had such a demanding job. I'd been blaming myself for not trying harder, but it must have been fate. I hadn't been gone for long, and he had invited another woman into our home. She must have been waiting for me to leave, and for some reason, Andrew assumed I would be gone a while. The sight of them all over each other, kissing, naked in our bed made me physically sick. It was something I kept imagining every time I closed my eyes. His betrayal has destroyed me and shattered what little self-esteem I had left.
I could torture myself until I was blue in the face and question my judgement over and over, but Andrew had given me no reason to doubt his fidelity. He always dressed smartly for work and regularly smelled of expensive cologne, which was nothing out of the ordinary. He left his mobile phone around the house and never once flinched as I answered it. There were no unexplained transactions on our joint bank statement that might arouse my suspicions. Nothing. He gave me no sign that he was unhappy. Well, he said I could be better. Honestly, I tried to be. But if only he had talked to me, we could have figured something out. It needn’t have to come to this. We could have split amicably if he had ended our relationship first.
My behaviour changed since I became a mother, I don't deny that. I developed body issues, and my confidence took a nosedive. Clothes didn't flatter my figure like they used to; I wore baggy tops and jeans instead of the tight-fitted garments I rocked in my early twenties. At twenty-five, I had fallen victim to the images on social media, comparing myself to women who had airbrushed and photoshopped their pictures and hated myself for not living up to their impossible standards.
I read in a magazine that men found confident women a turn-on, and there I was, constantly seeking reassurance from my overconfident husband. He never did like the way I picked apart my image as I dressed and undressed. He would roll his eyes and huff each time I pointed out the cellulite on my thighs or the belly fat above my caesarean scar, convincing me I was making a big deal out of nothing and that I was turning him off by constantly going on about it. It convinced me that I was the problem and had driven him away despite my friends and family telling me otherwise.
He started coming home later and later each night to avoid my nagging. His words. How could I blame him for finding a younger, slimmer, prettier woman more attractive than me? If I didn't embrace what I saw in the mirror, how could I expect Andrew to love me too?
