Emma’s story

“After several months of feeling an increasing distance between us, which I had largely put down to my husband’s stresses of work, I found out he was having an affair.

Whilst both trying to work out what we wanted to do next, we were mainly able to live in separate properties. Our daughters had accepted that he needed a space elsewhere to work in whilst not going into the office, and we had explained that we needed to take some time apart from each other. The lockdown restrictions also meant that the whole situation was not obvious to other family or friends.

I was bottling a lot up, crying excessively & feeling every emotion possible, but also putting on a total front for anyone else. I wasn’t eating or sleeping well, the first time I’d had a problem with either.

We had an initial chat with Amicable about our separation options &, it being apparent I needed to talk to someone, Claire was recommended to me by them.

I was concerned by just how low I was feeling a lot of the time and how all-encompassing my negative emotions were, despite trying to maintain a happier facade. I had become very anxious about telling our daughters & my parents that we were separating (& that it was not just a temporary arrangement). I was extremely worried about the impact on them.

I felt the future I had planned was suddenly taken away & I was really struggling to see how, after 35 years of being a couple, I could adjust to a positive happy life on my own. I was all over the place really, feeling the full range of sadness, anger, disappointment, fear, loss. I felt totally betrayed and angry at how my husband had behaved, immensely sad at the fundamental change to the family life we’d created, scared at how I would cope on my own.

An immediate relief was that everything I was feeling was normal. The techniques Claire and I discussed in the earlier sessions to deal with overwhelming emotions gave me ways of managing darker spells. For example, just turning my thoughts to what I had to be grateful for was a successful mood-changer for me.

Spending a session preparing the difficult conversation with my children and parents left me feeling less anxious and more in control - what was key for me was showing them that I was ok and they didn’t need to worry about me.

Some practical advice was also really helpful - change things in the house, add my choices, remove my husband’s clutter - obvious maybe but easy to overlook amongst everything else.

An important change of mindset for me was addressing what I could control & not what my husband had done/wouldn’t do/might do etc.

Another ‘aha’ moment came for me with the exercise in working out my key values. It made me think about how in several ways I hadn’t been living in a way that was true to myself. It also felt like a solid foundation for decisions I make moving forward - do they align with my values?

Listing my dreams gave me a focus of what could be achieved in the future - not necessarily the future I’d thought it would be 2 years ago but a future totally based on what suits me. In fact, the biggest shift for me was probably recognising & accepting that there is a bright future. I feel a new freedom in the choices I can make.

Claire is so easy to talk to, calm & reassuring. I naturally keep things to myself so it was crucial for me to feel at ease & I did from the first session with Claire. It felt like a safe space to be honest. I haven’t always wanted to open up to my family & close friends - while essential support, they are affected by the break up too. Having someone outside my everyday life to talk to has been invaluable for me.

My separation has been a very drawn-out process & Claire has also been totally flexible on the gaps between sessions to suit me, adapting to the help I needed at different stages.

My husband & I still have a long way to go in resolving complicated finances between us and I fully admit being on my own is hard in many ways but I feel stronger in myself with the help Claire has given me & more confident in working through difficult situations.

I would absolutely recommend Claire. I have looked back at the notes I’ve made over the past year or so. I initially wrote ‘Have made contact with Claire - I feel hopeful’. I’m very pleased that I did make contact & I was right to feel hopeful - I now feel more positively ready for my next stage of life.”