YOUR LIFE EXPERIENCES
Laurence, 55, lived for 20 years with a man who has died today. She learned that he had many extramarital affairs after his death, but never had any doubt about him. She tells her story to Olivier Delacroix on Europe 1.
"For 15 years, I had no idea he was a man who was perfectly punctual when he left work at 800 km.He was a high-voltage electrician so he made trips to the week. I knew when he was coming in. I had doubts the last time when things went wrong and I have learned a great deal since and since his death.
I was a stay-at-home mom with two children, so completely financially dependent, for 20 years. In the last days, when the couple was gone, he cut my food for the first time. You react because you have two children.
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"He can persuade you that you are nothing"
It's a good way to pressure, and you're brainwashed. You are told: 'My poor, look around you. All women work. You do not sleep because you are not tired because you do not work. You do not have to eat because you do not work. ' In addition, what is very serious is that when he leaves the week, you think again, you go over all that and inevitably at one time or another, you say to yourself: 'He is right.' He manages to persuade you that you are nothing.
Regarding the actions of my husband, I was alerted. Some people, friends that I know and I still meet, told me things after. Very sincerely, I think that if tomorrow I saw the husband of a friend with another woman, I am not sure that I would have to tell my friend. But I had two or three people who told me certain things and I did not want to believe it. Not because I was crazy in love but because the beauty criteria of the people in question did not fit. I thought, 'If he's cheating on me, he's not with someone like that.'
"I do not think I was naive"
I do not think I was in denial, I think he was very good not to show his Yin and Yang. He was showing a man and I think his face was very, very hidden. I do not think I was naive. I was not deluded either. In addition, with a man gone to the week, how would you like to see and know.
I feel nothing at all about the women with whom he deceived me, neither hatred nor compassion. They are women he has used, like me. It was a market for him and more conquests there were, the better he was and his ego too. I think that's it.
"The 20 years spent with him, I can not regret them"
Since I learned it and the story was over, it did not hurt me that it would have done if I had been in love, which was no longer the case. It is sure that everything is added to the rest. On the other hand, I continue to advance because, the 20 years spent with him, in spite of all that I know today, I can not regret them. I have two beautiful girls and just for that, the 20 years, I do not deny them. My daughters are here and I walk grace and through them. "