Last year, after a year of marriage to a lovely man, I left him. I left him for a million reasons. I left him because we were stuck in never-ending arguments about dirty cups and empty bank accounts. I left him because we were so domestically incompatible Tom & Jerry would have had more luck making house. I left him because I wasn't getting pregnant and the whole thing had become so racked with pain we had retreated to opposite corners to lick our wounds. I left him because, yes, in a year, I'd changed. I'd fallen out of love. I left him because I wasn't happy and could not see myself ever being so. I left him ultimately, because I made a mistake. Leaving was the most difficult thing I've done in my life. When he finally walked out the front door, shoulders hunched, tears in his eyes, and I said desperately, "I hope you'll be happy...er...one day...really," and he said, bitterly, "Huh," I felt like the lowest kind of creeping thing that ever crept guiltily under a dank stone and called it home. A hundred times more so because my leaving had horrible echoes, in a sickly ironic, table-turning fashion with what was, previously, the most difficult thing I've ever been through. And that was being left. In 1993, my partner of 10 years (and husband of four) woke me up one Sunday morning and announced he was in love with someone else. Half an hour and one packed suitcase later he was gone. That time it was be bawling, feeling bereft as he sped off in his bright red Mazda MX5 with the top down, Ray-Bans flashing in the sunshine. In the fridge was the food he'd bought that morning: two chicken breasts, two chocolate mousses, two of everything. I just stood there, still in my tatty towelling dressing gown, with one word reverberating around in my head - why? The burning question That word bounced around my head like a ping-pong ball on Pro-Plus for months. At first, I was in shock. I walked around in a daze. Most of all, I felt one great pulsating wound. I dragged myself to work, went out with friends, but I felt as if there was a great hole in my chest, as thought my ribcage had opened up and an icy wind was blowing through it. I was convinced peaple passing me on the street could see it. I learned the meaning of the cliche 'mad with grief'. Even when the initial climbing-from-the-wreckage shock wore off, I spent months obsessed with that one concept - why? I obsessed through sleepless nights. I asked all my friends. I bored all my friends. I asked astrologers, counsellors. I ferreted through a library of self-help books. I asked him. And I never got a proper answer. At least, none that would satisfy me. When I wasn't obsessing with why, I obsessed with the way he did it. Just like that, with no warnings, acting - an Oscar-winning performance - like everything was completely normal right up until the last minute. I was consumed by a wild fury because he didn't give me a chance. Didn't share his falling-out-of-love feelings. Didn't sit down and say, "I'm attracted to someone else" or "I'm unhappy, lets talk about it." Didn't give me one tiny hint so I didn't also feel, on top of everything else, such a god-awful dunce. When you're left, there's a whole heap of everything else. It's not just your emotions that have crashed into total chaos. Maybe your house, finances and family need stressful sorting. I had to sell up, move house; I had to negotiate a tricky divorce. I felt I had more unfinished business than the London stock market at opening time, more baggage than Heathrow airport. Six years on, the tables were turned. When it dawned on me I was falling out of love with someone who still loved me, that I was going to be the heartbreaker, my initial reaction was an icy dread that lodged in the pit of my stomach like a cold, heavy frisbee. I hung on in there for three months thinking, "I can't do this. I can't do this terrible thing that was done to me. I know how it feels." Role reversal I couldn't believe I, the abused, was becoming the abuser. I was my own worst nightmare; my own anti-Christ. I have a sneaking suspicion it's easier to leave when you haven't been deserted yourself. Because when you have been left, and now the person you are leaving fixes you with that wounded-animal look in their eyes and says: "How could you do this?", the only answer is a desperate, "I know(I've been there)." But, I thought, I won't do it the way it was done to me. No short, sharp shock. I'll do it right. I'll do it properly. I'll talk to him about it. I'll see if we can work it out. I'll give it my best shot. So we had couples counselling. We talked it over endlessly outside the counsellor's office. Part of the problem was we were so different - it was on ooposite-attract thing. He was sporty; I was arty. He was this; I was that. So we tried spending 'quality time' together. After discussing what we could do, the best we could manage was shopping for a pair of Rollerblades he wanted. Then he went off skating and - hey prestro! - we were seperated again. Next we watched a video the counsellor gave us about how to break in wild horses, the point being, apparently, we might learn how to 'join up' with one another. Whatever the point was, it was lost on me. So we shouted and fought and threw things. That didn't work either. There may well be, "50 Way To Leave Your Lover", but what I learned was not one of them is the 'right' way. There is never a perfect, pain-free way to break someone's heart. I also pondered how much easier it would have been to have just behaved as per normal, then packed my bags and left. But even today, having been to hell and back, via a few disgusting slip-roads, I still believe a human being - especially a human being you've loved - deserves better than that. (<-- my favourite part of the article) Six years ago I felt I had the bum deal while my ex was in clover. This time I saw how the other hald lives. And it's no bowl of cherries either. I felt isolated, judged, condemned. All the world loves lovers, and all the world hates someone who smashes the rosy glow with the announcement love had gone AWOL. But worst of all, by a long shot, is the condemnation that it is all your own making. The little voice that tells you, just as you fall asleep at night, the minute you wake up in the morning and all the minutes in between, that you are an almight shit. This is the voice of guilt, and guilt is one of life's truly horrible feelings. When you're left you at least have the moral high ground. When you're the leaver you inhabit a moral hole-in-the-ground, scrabbling desperately like a wild animal trying to fill it in somehow, anyhow. To my amazement I found myself thinking about my first husband. I found myself feeling sympathy for the devil. I found myself understanding. Even contemplating the f-word: forgiveness. Forgive and be happy All this has left me older, clearer, wiser. And much less judgmental. The idea anything is possible in life, even doing the very thing you thought you would never do, is strangely liberating. You can never say, 'I'd never do that' and mean it. I know you can forgive the worst thing ever done to you and that forgiveness and letting go can take the strangest of forms. And I know we're all trying to find happiness (and sometimes you create chaos and heartbreak on the way). I had lunch with a friend the other day whose partner walked out on New Year's Day (timing!) and as she talked (obsessively) about why, I felt myself pulled in all directions. Life is not plain blabk and white, with good people who love and evil people who leave. I realise now - and God knows I never thought I'd say this - my first husband was doing his best. His best wasn't great, but it was his best. In a strange way, leaving my lover made me feel better about being left. There are things I know now I wish I'd known that sunny May day back in '93. Mainly that when someone leaves, it's not because you're not loveable or you did something wrong. Believe it or not, the real answer to the 'why?' question is as simple as this: they just don't love you anymore. No guilt. No blame. No constant soul-searching. Maybe they love someone else. Maybe they don't. Either way, it's not your fault. And the quicker you realise that, the quicker you stop asking why, the quicker you can move on. It might take months. It might take years. (It took me six - plus another set of expensive photo albums and useless Waterford Crystal rose bowls.) It might just take being on the other side of the fence to finally, finally forgive and let go. By: Wendy Bristow