The Problem gets a name

It is the 24th of December 2006.

I have spent a week talking (since the night trip to Bronkhorst Spruit). At this point I have missed some crucial clues. The fact that the Prof's cell phone had completely disappeared from sight, passed me by. He was looking after that phone better than he looked after the kids when they were babies!

Marinda (eldest daughter) had sent me a beautiful bible verse on my cell phone a few days before: Deut 31:8
It promises that the Lord goes before you and will not leave you. I read it over and over, looking at each word of that verse. Marinda, by the way, had no clue of what was happening. The children were oblivious to it all.

Although I was too brain dead to realise what was actually happening, I do believe I TALKED the problem out of the Professor. What I mean by that is - I talked him to death, and he gave up and told me the partial truth!

On the night of the 24th , he could no longer bear it and suddenly blurted out - I have met someone else, I don't love you anymore, she understands me like you never did....

No...............

At this point, words failed me (hey - I can hear you laughing, I can hear you say - rare occurrence for you Yvonne).

The devastation of that moment... is hard to describe.

Every dream and belief I had held dear, slipped away like sand through my fingers. The disbelieve, heartache ... even the -" I don't understand what is happening - please let me wake up from this awful dream"... feeling, is all part of it, but really tells only a slice of what goes through your mind in those moments.

It feels like, what I imagine it is, to find out you have cancer, after having suffered from an illness with no name or face. The news is devastating, but the problem gets a name - AFFAIR.

A word about the timing. I so wanted to give you some quotes from the book - The Script - the 100% absolutely predictable things men do when they cheat. But the wheels of copyright approval turn slowly apparently. The best I can do, is to give you a link to their website. You can download a free chapter and get the idea.
According to the script (written to show that men who cheat all follow the same recipe - and in my case - SO TRUE), I was in good company regarding the wretched timing. Henry Ford II, grandson of the the founder of Ford Motor Company, chose the evening before their daughter's glitzy "coming out" party, (a huge social event), to tell his wife of 23 years, that he was leaving.