Life Uncut - Loving My Lying, Dying, Cheating Husband. Uncut with Kerstin Pilz

Episode Date: May 21, 2024

Imagine yourself married to the person you love when they’re diagnosed with terminal cancer. You’ve been their carer and support during such an emotionally difficult time. But, then you find out that they have been cheating on you since your wedding day.Do you continue to care for them?Today’s guest didn’t have to imagine this scenario. She lived it. Kerstin Pilz grew up in Germany and was working as an academic at Macquarie University here in Australia. She was married to her job when Gianni, a charming Italian, turned her life into a champagne-coloured fairy tale. Soon after their runaway wedding, her new husband was diagnosed with cancer. Kerstin became his dedicated carer. But when she discovered that he had been cheating on her throughout their relationship, she was faced with a difficult choice: walk away, or continue to care for the man who betrayed her.  In this chat we speak about:  Being faced with this emotionally charged conundrum The complexities of loving a narcissist Whether it’s better to find out about infidelity or not How to heal after cheating Whether infidelity poisons your memories and if they were ‘real’ moments Forgiveness being radical self care Kerstin’s choice to not have children and whether she regrets that  Kerstin has written a book titled Loving My Lying, Dying, Cheating Husband and you can get a copy of it here Kerstin’s instagram is here You can watch us on Youtube Find us on Instagram Join us on tiktok Or join the Facebook Discussion Group Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because WE LOVE LOVE! xxSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands were never ceded. We pay our respects to their elders past and present. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. This episode was recorded on Gadigal land. Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura. I'm Brittany. Now, I have a question for you. And this, I think, will have a few of you having some conflicting answers to this. Imagine meeting the love of your life, the man who you have been waiting for your whole life to come along and sweep you off your feet.

We don't wait for men, remember? No, we don't. But, like, you know, you've opened yourself up to it. You're ready for it. And he really does. You just think that there is no one more incredible than this man. You have a whirlwind romance. You get engaged.

You get married. and then very shortly afterwards you find out that your husband has terminal cancer you become his carer you pour your love and your adoration into this man only to find out whilst they are terminal and suffering with that diagnosis that they've also been cheating on you throughout your entire relationship i genuinely couldn't imagine being in this situation it's one thing and i feel like most people sitting at home right now have been in this situation is one thing to be cheated on right and to feel that ultimate betrayal to have to work through that trust because some people do work through it some people absolutely don't but then to add the layer of do I have to then

look after this person and care for them until they die because there might not be anyone else to look after them like do I put that betrayal to the side I cannot fathom that question yeah I mean this is the big one right like what would you do if this was your situation and it's not even just put it to the side because they don't have anyone to care for them this is would you willingly still be that person's palliative carer? Would you still willingly take care of that person until the end of life, knowing that they have betrayed you throughout your entire relationship? And the reason why I asked this question is because this is exactly the situation that Kirsten Pills found herself in. She's written an incredible book. It is called Loving My Lying,

Dying, Cheating Husband. Really drove that home in the title, didn't she? Yeah. I mean, there's definitely, there's no ambiguity in this one, but Kirsten talks about the reasons why she made the decisions to stay, the reasons why she made the decisions to forgive. And this conversation so deeply centers around the idea of forgiveness, but not just forgiveness for her ex-husband, but also for her own healing journey as well. Yeah. And it's also about the complex relationships surrounding cheating. We've often spoken about the fact that it's not straightforward and there's not one black and white answer. We also delve into the fact that she loved a narcissist. And one thing that I found so surprising that we do get into at the end

is not only how she handled the entire situation, but how she handled the end when he passed away. And I won't get too much into that. But for me, there were some really incredible pivotal moments that I don't know if I would have done the same thing. Yeah. And I think that that's what a lot of people are going to be left when they leave this conversation today is going to be wondering, what would you do if you found yourself in this situation? Let's get into the chat with Kirsten. I came across Kirsten via social media. And when I saw the title of her book, loving my lying dying cheating husband I was so intrigued by what this entails and I think your story is one that it will pull on so many people's heartstrings but like I said it will really make

you question what would you do in this situation Kirsten welcome to the podcast thank you very much for having me it's our absolute pleasure and I cannot wait to dive into this conversation but before we do everybody that comes on the podcast gives us their accidentally unfiltered their embarrassing story. And I know the conversation is about to get pretty heavy. But before we get into that, please embarrass yourself. Oh, dear. It's nice and humbling. Yeah, exactly. So when you told me to prepare an embarrassing story, I thought there's so many,

but I couldn't think of one because I'm a walking embarrassment very often. I don't believe it. But I did think about the time that I volunteered to give a TED Talk. And it was the pandemic and I was stranded in Australia, I was living in Vietnam at the time and my wardrobe was very reduced. So what to wear? So I found a dress in the op shop and I spent the entire month rehearsing my talk, not really thinking about the dress.

I had it dry cleaned because I looked in every shop, so in the end it came from the op shop. And so I went to the venue, put it on and I realised I hadn't really checked whether the bra straps would be showing or not. This is like half an hour before going on stage. I finally checked and it looked like an op shop dress with bra straps showing. So I thought, what do you do? You know, I'm a woman of a certain age, so I can't really go on there looking like this. So I thought, okay, I went backstage.

I went to the room where the workers have the props and I found a roll of duct tape. I took the bra off and I taped my nipples down. We've all been there. I reckon I've been to it. I was thinking in this context, it's probably not really embarrassing. But for me, it was highly embarrassing. because then I had to go into the room and the guy had to mic me up and I was like, ah, well, I can't really open my dress

because I'm not wearing a bra, but I couldn't tell him either. So I sort of – He's like trying to find somewhere to clip a microphone onto and you can stick it in my duct tape. I said, I'm very private. I'll do it myself. Can I say, if you put the wrong duct tape or you put duct tape, if you put the wrong tape on your nipples, you will know about it

because they've got special nipple tape, right? But if you're putting it down with some like hardcore hardware, when you've ripped that off, you know about it. The duct tape can rip paint off the walls and learn what it can do to you when you try and take that stuff off. Well, that was the next part of the embarrassment because I was so hyped up after the talk because it was a TED Talk. So it was like one of these once in a lifetime opportunities.

I forget to take it off. So the next morning, the pain and the embarrassment. What have I done? I had forgotten. Kirsten, I would love to know before we get into your story who you were before you met your husband. How does a German who is an expert in Italian end up in Australia? Yeah, well, good question. I grew up in Germany in the 70s. It was a very grim place. It was post-war. It was very cold. I mean, it's still cold. And I just had this feeling I was born in the wrong country. So I had this strong calling. As soon as I finished school, I needed to get out of there. And for some reason, I was brave enough to just book a ticket on my own. This is before we had phones, you know, mobile phones, early 80s to Jakarta of all places. And I ended up there by myself.

I spent a year in Bali in 87. Wow, what a different place then. I don't think there was any yoga in Ubud then. I can't remember. And then I thought, okay, Australia is the next destination. So yeah, and so then I came to Sydney and I saw the blue sky and that was it. I needed to live in Australia. In your description about yourself, and it was one of the things that I thought,

it really jumped out at me, and it's kind of a sidestep from what we're going to be talking about, but you described yourself as childless by choice. Yeah. What does that mean to you? And I guess like of a time and of an age when there was almost the expectation that women just have children, when you say it was your choice, was it something that you always knew that you were like, kids are not for me? I think it was my mother who put that idea into my head very early on because she, I think, got frustrated that she got stuck in a marriage at, you know, 23. I mean, it was a different generation when, and that meant she had to then

look after these unmanageable kids who just ran off and left her once they reach a certain age exactly but it was also once I lived in Australia I realized you know I was doing all of this on my own so I was putting myself through university on my own because I'd sort of basically run away from home and I thought if I have kids then everything's going to cost me double as in going back to Germany because in those days it was air travel you know it wasn't so common you know to just jump on a plane and also I think my mother's experience she said oh you know marriages I don't know they're trapped don't get trapped and I just thought I haven't yet found the right man and I want to be that I can imagine being with until this human being I put into the world

will be 20 or ready to be on their own yeah can I ask you very personal but do you now in hindsight have any regrets about not having children or do you still feel wholeheartedly that you made the right decision yeah interesting I have quite a lot of younger friends who are still in their sort of 30s who ask me you know should I have a kid maybe not because yeah I'm asking for me basically yeah so my good friends I do boot camp with them we go on you know these bike rides and so on and I say no don't have kids just enjoy your life that way you can you know you can enjoy it You can do whatever you want. You're not beholden.

But now that I'm at this point in my life, I do miss the company of adult children. I have my nephew and niece. They were very intelligent, lovely human beings. And if I had kids of my own, I think I would enjoy being around them. That's the thing that's so hard is because kids don't stay kids forever, but it's a very big part of the parenting experience is having little children.

Well, it's like saying, yeah, I want to have kids and get through the first 25 years so that I could have a couple of years as adults it doesn't really make sense it's like just get a friend you know get an adult friend totally but I mean it's really important and I think it's really interesting because we've definitely had big conversations on this podcast about being childless by choice but it's always been from people who have been within this age group so they're they're currently going through that process in that period of like when all their friends have little kids but it's so interesting to hear about what's that like when all of your friends and their little kids are now adults

and you can have a conversation with them and you can have a relationship which goes beyond just wiping arses and getting screamed at all night. Exactly. But, you know, I was lucky enough, I did take my niece travelling and so I had this, you know, I had it. And she came out from Germany and lived with me for five months and went to school in Australia. So I did have it.

But I have to say I do love little kids. I love them. And so I have lots of friends who are in their 30s who need surrogate grandmas. You're like, I'm here. And then I'll hand them back when I need to hand them back. I was going to say you love them because you can hand them back. Exactly. So what was your life like?

You had moved here and how old were you when you met your husband, Gianni? Yeah, so I moved here in my 20s and then I had a career and I lived here and did lots of things. And then we met when I was 43 and I had actually just gone through early menopause. I was at work and suddenly I had this excruciating pain in my abdomen and I went to the doctor and she said, we need to take you over tomorrow, otherwise you'll have a problem. Yeah, I had a cyst. I mean, it happens.

It's quite common. And then she said, you have to now be prepared to enter menopause. And I'm like, wow, I'm barely 42. Maybe I was 43 and I was in denial. And then it throws you into this depression because it just came totally unexpected and also it meant I had to be at home. I was living on my own and I was single.

I had just moved to Sydney. I was enjoying my single life. I kept saying, I'm in love with the city, not a man. I don't need a man. I'm in love with the city. I love that. But, you know, Sydney is a hard city sometimes in that it's very large. So you can get quite lonely when you're a workaholic and then you come home and your

friends live on the other side of the city and, you know, it takes hours to catch up. So, yeah, then that loneliness suddenly came and I thought, hang on a minute. I think I got everything the wrong way. I forgot to have children. I forgot to have a family, even though it was never really in my plan what life should have been like. At that moment I thought, I have given everything to this career and where is it now bringing me chicken soup while I'm on the couch?

Yeah, this is why you need that adult kit. Exactly. Chicken soup. In that, did you have a moment afterwards where you decided to actively date or was meeting Gianni a moment of serendipity almost? Yeah, I did go on to, I guess it was RSVP, but only as a lurker. I didn't actually upload my profile because I was like, what if my students see me? And it's like, as if they would have checked out.

But no, that was a time when online dating was still a bit taboo and people kind of poo-pooed it a little bit. And so it was kind of hard to go online dating. Poo-pooed it. You can tell who has the little child out of the three of us. Yes, but really coming back to your question, it was serendipity. I was actually giving a talk in front of an audience and afterwards there was this man who was exciting and different. Talk to me about chemistry because I think sometimes chemistry, we have spoken about it so much, chemistry can make you feel as though you've met your soulmate. That's you and this person against the world.

What was the chemistry that you experienced when you met Gianni? Yeah, I think it was instant as in he had these green eyes which for an Italian is unusual. and they were really sparkling and they were sparkling with mischief. And I still remember we were at the buffet after I had given this talk in this lovely venue with a view of the harbour, so everything was like very glamorous in the sense it was a typical sort of Sydney moment and he poured me a glass of wine from the bottle of the buffet.

But the way he looked at me, it was like as if he had stolen it, like a little boy. He had this boyishness about him and yet he was actually 13 years older than me. But that boyish energy also meant he was full of excitement and he wanted adventure as in we both shared a love for travel and he told me he had just come off a bike ride all around Australia on a yellow Harley Davidson. I was like, oh, okay, you're different.

You're a bad boy. You're a bad boy. And I love riding motorbikes too. I'd never ridden a Harley Davidson. But, you know, I grew up on bikes, I mean smaller bikes. But still I thought, oh, yeah, I'd do that with you. No worries. I thought you were going to say, I would do that.

Like him. Yeah, I did that. I did that, it was probably the same thing, the same thought. So how long did you date for and was this a whirlwind romance? Like what was the initial dating period like with him? Yeah, it was a whirlwind. I guess I was ready for a whirlwind because I felt like, okay, you know, that sort of experience of that early, it was perimenopause I could say, but I wasn't expecting it because it was early. My doctor said it's 10 years too early.

It had sort of made me feel like, what's happening here? Am I old? Is this it? And then suddenly I was feeling completely seen and heard. And he was the kind of person who showered me in compliments, in attention and in gifts. And he also did all those things, you know, taking me to beautiful dinners, to the opera house, all of those things. And it just made me feel like magic, like I'd suddenly swapped this role from sitting on the couch, you know, moping. And then suddenly I am the lead in an Italian rom-com.

this is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow boost you hear that actually so often with and we've talked about doing an entire episode around it but women in their 40s and 50s where they feel like they've been replaced by the younger generation and they don't feel seen anymore or heard or desired or wanted and all of a sudden this man swoops in who and i'm jumping ahead here who sounds from the characteristics a bit like a narcissist love bombing i'm going to give them everything they want going to make them feel like they're the only person in the world and we find out soon that you weren't unfortunately the only person. Can you say now in hindsight do you think he was a narcissist? Yes definitely. I mean I was trying to ease into that. Well I think I could

write a PhD about narcissism by now because I have researched it thoroughly. I wasn't really aware of the narcissistic personality profile at that time and I just couldn't see it. I just thought I mean yes I thought well he's a bit over the top but you know he was Italian. He was meant to be melodramatic it sort of came with the territory you know that was part of his persona so I did not see it for a long time obviously now I know what love bombing is back then I didn't know I just thought wow you know he feels uh like he's found you know for both of us we were saying oh this is a second chance you know at love and we're both older second time around you know I think that this conversation though like your story is so different to anything that we've spoken about

when we've spoken about narcissism or narcissistic personality disorder or anyone who has like traits within the scale of it the response is always to leave like that it's not possible to have a relationship with someone who's a narcissist that you need to create as much distance as possible but the very real reality is is that there are people who fall in love with narcissists and then spend their life trying to make that work or discovering things about them that don't necessarily meet up to the person that you think that they were or that they are you were together for was it only two years uh all up I think it was four or five two years of being married was it and then he received a diagnosis yes yes that's right yes yeah well so how did we get to the engagement and

the wedding so how many years were you together before that happened everything happened very quickly in the sense like I think in hindsight he probably talked about marriage from the minute we met, but only in that exuberance. Oh my God, you know, you're the woman. I'm going to marry you. I'm going to marry you. You know, you're the person I want to spend the rest of what's left of my life with now. I got offered the dream job. I was an academic at a university in Sydney and we had entered a study abroad program with seven other universities aboard a floating university camp as a cruise ship. In other words, it was actually an American study abroad program. and I was the Macquarie University representative and I said to them can I bring my partner and they

said of course do so he came along and so we had these four months aboard this ship traveling around the world teaching just two weeks into the voyage we were in Thailand when he dislocated his shoulder aboard the the ship we had to then have you know see the doctor in in Bangkok go to the hospital So then he was in a pretty bad shape from the morphine. It was very, very painful. So we just took a room after the hospital and said, right, we'll stay here for two nights, three nights, and then go back to the hospital.

And I had a friend with me from the ship, and she said, well, while he's dozing conked out on painkillers, let's go, you know, and check out the tailors downstairs. And so there's all these tailor shops that make you bespoke anything you want. and these particular ones were specialised in wedding dresses and so they hit my friend who was a 45-year-old single American up with these wedding dress folders and said, no, not me, definitely not me, but maybe her.

Anyway, we found this incredible piece of fabric which incorporated all of Johnny's favourite colours. He loved colours, especially sort of yellow, orange, bright, you know, pink and we just took a fabric sample back to the room and by then the painkillers had worn off. He was still in pain, but the smile was back on his face. He saw the fabric. He said, that's fabric for a wedding day.

Let's just do it. Let's just get married on the ship. And because he was in this state, it sort of felt like, okay, it's a moment of celebration and, you know, why not? And we knew we had a sea passage coming up of two weeks at sea and my students were getting very antsy doing, you know, cabin fever. So we all decided it's a great party. Let's just have a great party.

You got married with your students on the sea. yes with a dislocated shoulder yes I can only imagine after this after getting married spending this time overseas and you know even the relationship itself being at the four-year mark like you're still in this there's still this like bubble of just love and adoration and then you found out that Gianni was actually quite sick what happened there when did you get that diagnosis and I guess like when you did find out that he was very unwell was it something that they were trying to treat it first or was it a terminal diagnosis straight away? Yeah, no, it wasn't terminal straight away. So we actually had signed up to go on that ship for

another voyage. So the idea was we'll just keep, you know, traveling around the world on this ship forever until I retire or whatever. But then it was the global financial crisis and the first thing that the Royal Caribbean Company took off their schedule was, of course, our not profit making a study abroad program and so that was very sad but I had a year of long service leave up my sleeve so immediately he said right we'll just keep traveling anyway let's just hatch another plan so we spent many many weekends coming up with this amazing plan and we booked everything down I mean I'm not normally like this but somehow we got into it and we booked this trip around the world you know it included I don't know two months in Buenos Aires studying Spanish and all sorts of

incredible stuff. The night before we were meant to go to the next destination, so a week before this incredible trip was starting, he found a pea-sized lump behind his right ear. And he said, I think I may have a problem. I said, what? Because he was a bit of a hypochondriac. So I didn't actually take it seriously. I had once had a little enlarged lymph node and the doctor said, don't worry about it. It's nothing. It's nothing. So we were then in Cairns, far away from Sydney, far away from our stuff, which we had sort of put in storage. And there was no diagnosis. And so that took a while before we got the diagnosis. And it was, okay, you basically have to go back to Sydney and have this looked at by a specialist.

We can't do it up here. And then by the time we got the diagnosis, it was the cancer has spread to the lungs and to the lymph nodes. It wasn't yet declared terminal. It was stage three. I mean, I didn't know anything about the staging of cancer. He was a trained medical doctor and he knew that this is really serious. I can only imagine when you are in a loving relationship and you are married, the diagnosis of cancer is something that it would bind you together in terms of like wanting to support each other. But the diagnosis in itself would be so much for the two of you to work through and the

treatments and everything else that goes with it. but the thing that makes your story so interesting is what you discovered whilst your partner was so unwell and I mean I would love to get into how that came about but basically at this point in time you discovered that your partner who you're committed to who you're working through this cancer diagnosis with was also having affairs outside of the relationship how did you discover that yeah so that was I think a year after this operation to the lungs so he did actually recover got his strength back and you know you never know you can't see the cancer so you don't know a year later we were actually going on he had sort of this idea because you've been you know

you had to put your hold on life because of me we had to cancel all these travel plans because of me let me take you to this beautiful eco lodge you know north of Cairns and we'll have a lovely weekend as we were driving there we stopped in the shopping center just to run a few errands and suddenly he dropped the newspaper. And I thought, that's odd. And I could see suddenly there was no strength in his hands. And suddenly he could even no longer walk. His gait was funny. But even a few days earlier already, I had noticed that his voice started sounding like he'd swallowed a helium balloon. And I thought, that's really odd. And food got stuck in the corner of his mouth. But of course, I tried to ignore it thinking, oh, he's just tired. And then he said, he was a trained

doctor, he said, we need to go immediately to the emergency department. This is an emergency. He said, look, before we go in there, we need to download the medical files so that we can show them that I actually have this history of cancer so that they will take us seriously. But he couldn't, at that point, he couldn't really operate his own inbox. And of course, all his passwords had always been off limits, which in hindsight, of course, red flag. In that moment, he had no choice but to give me his password so that I could download them for him. And as I did, I noticed a strange subject line on my way out of that inbox. And I thought, that's very odd. What was it? It was, what a beautiful woman, but it wasn't from me or to me. And I thought it's about some

other beautiful woman. Then also when he was in the hospital, it emerged, this was actually the the cancer had spread to the brain it was now stage four and he needed immediate urgent brain surgery so of course there was all this you know drama as in they didn't provide an ambulance to drive all the way from Cairns to the next hospital where he could be operated which was 500 kilometers further south it was raining tropical wet season so I became the untrained ambulance driver because there was no transfer and it was all highly dramatic and extremely stressful I mean of course, for both of us, really. So when we got there to Townsville, I had to just take a hotel room. And I noticed the night before the operation, there were a lot of women on his Facebook page

appeared wishing him well. And there was a lot of sort of traffic going on by people I had never heard of. And I thought, hang on, what's going on here? And that was the password he wouldn't share with me. He shared that with his brother. And he said, look, I'll put my brother in charge of the Facebook and I thought, I'm in charge of everything here. I'm your wife. You knew at that point you were like, there's something behind it. There's something behind it. Yes, I'm your wife. And not only have I been driving you as an ambulance driver, I have been cooking for you. I've been doing everything for you. So it felt like I was being left out. And that's when I realized there's something that's not right. Anyway, I waited for three weeks because I thought, who am I to do this

while he is in this very vulnerable state? And also there's two massive things that are going on at this point in time there's your partner when you've been given a stage four diagnosis you know that this is terminal now and so you're like okay well on the scale of severity is infidelity worth me having a conversation with right now when right now we're fighting to try and maintain as much longevity in life it must have been such a challenging thing to go well when's the right time to bring up a conversation that but the curiosity of just trying to find out exactly what was in that email how many emails there were when was the time that you thought I've had enough. I'm going to go investigate this more and log back into the emails because I would

have been straight in there. Like you're a better woman than I, because if I had have seen that email and I had his password, I would have gone back in later that night. Yes. But it was exactly like you just said. It was that conundrum. It's not really on his mind right now. You know, the man is looking death into the, you know, staring at death. So who am I to bring this up right now? And the conversation's never going to go down the way it would go down if death wasn't on the doorstep that's the thing if you had that conversation around infidelity with anyone else there would be the groveling there would be the apology but I would only assume that there's bigger things on his mind in that moment exactly I was thinking about this on my way to work today

and I was speaking to my partner Ben about it like I was running the conundrum by him and also asked him what he would do you know if I was dying and I had cheated on you but he raised a really good point that was he's like well it's not necessarily about having the conversation with your partner, but it's just about you understanding and knowing and deciding if you want to ask those questions. Because if the time comes where he passes away and you never got the chance to ask who, what, why, when, you're the one that needs to be able to live the rest of your life without knowing. So when did you decide to go back in to the emails? That's exactly what was going through my mind. Exactly. That I just wanted to have that clarity because I knew that he would change the

password the minute he had recovered enough to go back, you know. So I, well, it was the night before. I mean, I had thought about it for three weeks, but I had distracted myself. I went to yoga. Don't think about it, you know. Om, be mindful. All you can think about. Yeah. All I could think about was it. So then the last night I thought, okay, I've just got to do it. I'm just going to have to have a quick look just to put my mind at ease. Because like you just said, what if he dies and I never have this clarity. So I bought myself a bottle of wine, of course, to have enough courage to be reckless enough to actually do this.

And I remember I was sitting there thinking, oh my God, I should have got two bottles because what if… And a gin. And a gin and some whiskey because what happens if I find something that will be devastating? I'll definitely need some more. Anyway, when I heard the doors of the bottle shop downstairs go down, I thought that's it.

I'm just going to press enter now and just get it over and done with. And yeah, and so then what I found was actually a lot worse than what I could have imagined. He had gone back to women that he had known before we got together and resumed those relationships. Physically? Physically and yes, I mean, they were overseas and he traveled overseas frequently. So a lot of it was also not physically because he was an incredible, and that's how I felt for him. He was an incredibly charming writer of letters or emails. He was addicted to his keyboard and, yeah.

When you found that, and when we say worse than you ever could imagine, do you have an idea of how many women it was, how many other relationships he was managing to maintain at the same time? And I guess how serious they were too. Yeah. I think serious, quite serious. Some of them sort of offered to take him in or look after him should the cancer become.

I mean, this is, you know, once the cancer was known or the diagnosis was known. So quite serious. Yeah, maybe about five active. When you found that out and you did have a conversation with him, how did he react? So I initially thought, okay, maybe I just don't tell him because his mind is right now. He's probably, he might not even want to see them ever again if he's just focused on his survival on, you know, this moment. Because, I mean, a brain surgery and then having a stage four diagnosis is massive. So who am I to spoil that for him?

But I just couldn't hold it in. I just couldn't. So eventually I thought, okay, I'll write him a letter. And I actually said, look, it's not for me now. Let's not have an argument about it. It happened, okay? I'll stay by you because this is a different situation. Obviously, if he hadn't been ill, there would have been only one way to go about this.

and that was to divorce, to not stay together. So I told him and the way he reacted was to say, well, if it's all your fault. And first of all, he said, okay, how many do you know about? Okay. And I could see he's probably thinking, oh, my God, how much of it does she know? Yeah. What else doesn't she know? But also probably like how can I minimize the damage?

Where can I lie? Like where can I cover up some of it? You just made me flash back to like my trauma. I was also dating a doctor for a couple of years and we were getting married we had the whole lot this whole thing and he ended up having a double life with multiple multiple women and he was marrying someone else as well not just like light-hearted cheating and word for word when it came out and I discovered it and confronted him he also blamed me and said this is your like this is your fault look what you've done you're ruining my life like everything that you just said is

classic narcissism yeah when you were reading these emails for the first time how did you feel in that moment because it sounds like that you made a really quite a quick decision to say well I'm going to stand by him regardless was it as quick as you're making out and as easy as you're making out no it wasn't the first thing of course is I was frantically trying to reconstruct the timelines when did he actually see them hang on where was I in that moment and then when I did reconstruct some of it. I was devastated thinking, so here I am preparing his green smoothie or whatever, or working on the ship, working really hard because we had had this conversation before we went on the ship. I said to him, you might get bored because I will be having to work very hard

as in it's very intense. You live with your students, it's all new stuff. And they did have an opening for a mental health or a doctor or whatever. And he said, no, you know what, I'll just come as a student and I'll just study. But clearly, and that's one of the things he said, one of the reasons why I had to resume some of these affairs is because you were always focused on your work and you weren't there for me. You were always tired. You were always busy. A load of rubbish. It's like, yeah, well, we could have maybe had that conversation rather than you just going off. So that was one of the things. But yeah, coming back to how did I react? Obviously,

I didn't immediately make that decision. We actually both said, okay, we need time out. But we couldn't have time out immediately because he needed to, after that brain surgery, he needed then to have seven weeks of radiation therapy. And I was there. I was there to be his chauffeur again and his cook. And we just got on with the job. It just was like, okay, let's just get on with that.

Let's not talk about what I found. Let's just, because it was confronting for him. I mean, the radiation therapy was terrible. Yeah. there's this reaction that happens like your reaction when you find out something that's awful is often anger it's often very like harsh and very like very visceral yeah and then as time goes by our initial feelings often migrate into something else when you say that you then had so many so much time because he needed to still be cared for could you feel your anger or your

upset and your hurt could you feel that softening could you feel yourself forgiving him in that period? Not so much in that period. I kept myself very busy with physical exercise. I like became this runner. I just ran away from it all and I exhausted myself physically. But then what we did is we said, okay, let's have a month out. We need time out. And then he went back to Italy. I'm sure he, well, I said to him, do whatever you have to do in Italy. I don't care. And I went and checked myself into a 10-day silent meditation retreat in Thailand because I thought I needed a crash course in forgiveness. And I thought, if I live with real monks in a real monastery, maybe I become spiritually awakened by osmosis and able to keep my heart open when it's broken. But what that

experience did for me, I don't recommend it for everybody. It did work for me. And I was sitting, I was actually the only white Western woman in that monastery at that time. And, you know, sitting there in my white robes at dawn in the deserted meditation hall, I thought, gee, am I going mad? What am I doing? But then I also thought, OK, what will the future look like? And one of the helpful things, and that is, I think, why I had turned to Buddhism, because I thought maybe they have some tools to teach me about forgiveness and compassion. One of the monks said to me, okay, he shared with me the parable of the second arrow. And I still love this parable.

He said, the first arrow we cannot control. We all experience suffering. In fact, that is the first noble truth of Buddhism. But the second arrow is our choice. And I took that to mean that while we can't avoid pain, we can choose our suffering. In other words, I could go on and just drink a bottle of wine every night and call in the body bastard with a slurred voice or I could maybe find another way and I thought maybe there is a way I could actually grow from this experience rather than be erased by it and so broken by it

exactly I didn't want to be that broken and I you know visually sitting there in that meditation hall I had a very good idea by the end what my second arrow could look like when you you came back from that did you ever get to sit down and talk to Gianni and actually just make him answer these questions tell you everything I mean did you want to know the intricacies and the details of these affairs or for you was it easier to just accept that it happened but not want to know anything because I know for me I wanted to know everything I wanted to know how many people how he did it when he did it why he did it and did that help you it actually did because I realized he was so crazy that I dodged a bullet like by knowing the details I was like oh this is so much

easier for me to walk away from now but if I just knew that there was an affair and I didn't know the details I would have I think I would have found it harder to move on I think by then I had pieced together a lot of the details already and the timelines and so because of course by the time we got back together I think in hindsight yeah what was it maybe had another six months after that I felt like do we really need to go I mean we tried and then it was just too painful and I thought you know what it's not relevant the man is dying what's the point who cares really and he was no longer interested in them by that stage he was really just interested in well he only had the energy to be in the here and now and so it we didn't know we didn't do what you did I think

of course if the scenario had been different and perhaps if it had been that scenario where he wasn't obviously dying and so on I probably would have wanted to know all the details but in this context no it didn't matter anymore a lot of people when they go through cheating when infidelity is present in the relationship there's often this feeling of like well what we had wasn't real like that didn't exist yeah did you think that or were you able to kind of realize that some people are able to compartmentalize feelings and that they're able to feel real for you in this respect but still able to do these things that are incredibly hurtful and almost live side by side themselves.

Yeah, I think a lot of our experiences were real simply because also they were so unique, you know, like this trip around the world on the ship and so on and also because a lot of those women were actually married so he could never have the things that we did together with them. Like even, I guess, sleeping together overnight would have been difficult. In fact, I know it was because they had to obviously go out of you know work out ways to do that so that was real but what I found really hard to tolerate is

or to get my head around or to to find peace with was the fact that he would lie in bed next to me and had done so before I found out texting these women yeah all the time and I was like but you know here I am helping you with your especially once he had relied on me already on the ship he was relying on me to help him dress him after he had the operation in Cape Town for the shoulder so there I was you know pulling up his pants going to work on the ship and the next thing he would spend all morning just chatting with these women and perhaps at night when I was lying in bed I mean not so much on the ship because the internet was terrible that didn't work that might have been the only thing stopping it at the time but there's this idea and like people used to say to me

exactly that but was it real then do you feel like those years weren't real or that he didn't love you and I still to this day say the same thing I say oh he loved me he just loved other people too and his love wasn't normal and like you have to believe that because otherwise you think well I've just wasted all these years of my life I have to and I know a lot of people are going to be in their cars or whatever right now saying bullshit that's not love and I get it I understand that but I know what those years were like and whilst I think he is a fuckwit for what he did. You have to hold on to this fact of, well, he did the wrong thing, but he still loved you in whatever way you need to understand that.

That's right. And I agree with that. I think that was exactly the case for us too. And I also believe that he really wanted to break his patterns perhaps and not go back to these women. I do believe that when he said to me, this is a fresh start, he really believed it, but he just couldn't pull it off. And I think, as you would know, the problem with narcissists is they can't love themselves. So therefore, they can't really love others in the way that we expect them to. And they need this constant validation from the outside. And so that's, yeah, and it almost makes you feel like you have to have empathy or compassion for somebody who is that incapable of having that love fully. Yeah. What have you learned about forgiveness?

Oh, so I really realized, as I was saying before, when I was sitting there, you know, as that woman who was looking towards a broken woman, working too hard, drinking too much to forget that she had left the man she had loved when he was dying. I thought, okay, forgiveness could be the opposite to that. I didn't want to be that broken, you know, woman haggard, you know. I thought forgiveness could perhaps be that antidote. And what I've realized, it's really a form of radical self-care. It's a form of self-healing because it gives you agency. By letting go and by setting them free, you're setting yourself free. And I think that's what it really is.

It's empowering. That's what I learned about it. Did he ever apologize to you? No. You know, narcissists can't say sorry, really. but he did say he acknowledged that he had hurt me and that he made me suffer. And that was good enough. That was his way of apologizing. And again, we're talking about a man who was dying and a few months after that, he did die. So from that perspective, that was good enough for me.

And that was his form of apologizing. Yeah. It's really beautiful to hear you speak about this because your empathy for someone who we are taught to have no empathy for because they lack empathy themselves. I think the thing that is such a standout is the fact that the reason why the person who's like the victim of a narcissist gets hurt so bad is because we still have empathy for them. We have empathy for the fact that as you said, they're not able to love themselves or they are that broken bird or they do the things that are incomprehensible to people who don't have or don't live within this spectrum of narcissism or behavioral sort of narcissistic personality disorder, because we would never treat people like that. But yet you still manage

to not only forgive, but have the empathy for the why in how he does it. And I think that that's just such a testament to what a kindhearted person you are. That's right. I mean, the empathy is lacking in the narcissist and in the hypersensitive person, it's in abundance sometimes too much, right? Also often why they're attracted to you as well. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. You wrote in your book about as Gianni was dying, finding a different kind of intimacy? Yeah. What did you mean by that? Yeah, so it occurred to me when it was only the two of us at the end,

like literally there we were, you know, in far north Queensland, the weather was doing its thing as in dramatic tropical weather. We did actually have a Category 5 cyclone. He was a Category 5 cyclone. He was a Category 5, yeah, and then we had it followed by a real one. And it felt very precious and it felt like that was such a unique intimacy that obviously he could only, I mean, that wasn't replicable. Like you can, you know, share your sexual intimacy with multiple partners as he did, but there was only me that he shared that intimacy with. So it felt like a privilege and it really felt like a gift.

And there's this wonderful quote by Ram Dass, the American guru, who says, we're all just walking each other home. And it felt like my role then was to walk him home to his final destination and to be there, to hold his hand and to make peace with him. Because I think he also, it was a beautiful, it was a beautiful time being there with him in this, that was real intimacy. In his most vulnerable state. In his most vulnerable state. when he, you know, I could have, I mean, I could have just, I don't know, kicked him out of the bed or whatever. Like he was completely vulnerable and to be there and to honor that, that was a real privilege. Yeah. How do you feel like your thoughts around relationships and love and intimacy now

have changed? Has it affected you? I don't know. Are you dating again? Has it affected what you want from your relationships? Yeah, I think I remain a trusting person and I always say jokingly now I work more on the relationship I have with myself. That is actually much more important. I mean, it sounds maybe selfish, but really, you have to work on the self love. And especially the empath amongst us need to also foreground that a little bit. And it's another sort of survival strategy. You know, you can't really love others if you're not having a nurturing relationship with yourself, which also means knowing what your boundaries are and honoring them so I think I'm getting better at that sort of honoring my boundaries and and just saying okay

this is what I need and yeah this might be a really hard question to answer because the alternate you can't really compare to because you didn't experience it but do you think finding out and like living through this this time away from him this forgiveness this acceptance do you think that ultimately it made dealing with his death easier or do you think it was still as hard did you still feel as in love with him at the end or was it almost as though there was a sense of not obligation because you wanted to be there as well but just a sense that you could make closure with it easier than had you had this blissful relationship right until the end yeah I mean obviously we can't know these things but I definitely think yes in the sense that already

when on the ship I had to look after him and it was that was really hard too because the ship was swaying, we got into, you know, storms and so on, I had somehow taken on that maternal love. Or rather, I was forced to also, this well of maternal love sort of sprang forth, which sort of mixed with the romantic love. And so that maternal love, the caring, the looking after him, the day-to-day business of cooking the meals for him, making sure he ate that anti-cancer, that helped. Yes, it shifted. It definitely shifted. But I also thought about, you know, what would it have been like had I not known before he died? What would it have been like finding out after he had died?

And I think that would have been so hard. Always worse. Yes, worse. Well, there's no resolution. That's right. And at least this way that you had, I guess, a level of closure. I agree because you would literally be like, the man I loved I didn't know.

And you wouldn't have a chance to even have those grounding conversations around the why. Yes. I know a lot of people would be asking or thinking to themselves right now, did he have another option for someone to look after him did he have other family or friends or like could you have made the decision to walk away knowing he would have been cared for yes yes and you still chose to stay yeah I mean the his brother was overseas so technically you would have but yes it could have yes definitely I just there's a part of me I mean when I put myself in

this position and I had this conversation with Laura and I had it with my partner Ben And straightaway, Ben was like, I'd give you to someone else to look after. He was like, if you've been doing the dirty on me, and I thought about it and I thought there's a part of you that can't, there's no closure if you walk away and if there's no forgiveness and this forgiveness is the most powerful thing and you often don't forgive someone for them. You forgive someone for yourself so that you can move on with your life and not have this hatred cloud hanging over your head constantly.

And I think people get mixed up with that, the reason for forgiveness, and people would judge you for forgiving someone. Like, how could that person stay and look after someone when he did that to her? But it's not necessarily for him. That's right. You do it also for yourself because I wanted to be able to live with the echoes of my deeds, as in I wanted to be able to know that I've done – I wanted to be able to live with it. And also in my, when I was 18, I dropped out of high school and I ended up working in an old people's home, actually looking after the dying, completely untrained. They didn't have any HR, you know, measures then. And I knew it was very sacred to be able to hold space.

These were often people who didn't have family. So I was the person holding their hands. And I was 18, but I just felt it was such a privilege and it was so sacred. And so I knew that if I stayed with him until the end, we would have this wonderful closure or we could and we did. And also a friend had said to me, narcissists very rarely change, but it is possible sometimes at the end of their lives, like when they're staring death in the face, they can sometimes change. And I believe that there was, and the Buddhists say, you know, you can clean up a lot of karma in those last moments. I do believe that he did change, that none of that was any more important. And the other thing he did, which was he kept saying thank you a lot

and I had the feeling that he was healing himself with gratitude. Because he couldn't heal it with apologies. Yeah. Do you think the other women knew that you existed, that he was married? Yes, they did. Yes, yes, absolutely. Did you ever feel like you wanted to reach out to any of them or contact any of them? I did.

Oh, please do tell. Well, so the night before the funeral, I had to write the eulogy and I put, you know, we put this lovely flyer together with all these collage of photos and there was us, you know, all over the world and all these photos and him as a younger man and so on and of his family, of course. And then I was so angry. I don't know. The anger came up in a way because perhaps it was the reason for that maybe because I could never really yell at him and say, you fucking bastard, because you can't yell at a dying person with those words. So I had to swallow that, and it came up that night.

I just thought, Jesus. And that was the other night I drank an entire bottle of red wine. I didn't make a habit of it. We always send bad emails on a few. We're a few ones deep, don't we? And I was looking at this frog perched on the veranda on a chair thinking, that's him, oh, my God. And I was yelling at the frog, you know, in this slurred voice.

And, you know, then I made a pot of tea, sobered up. And then I thought, okay, there's only one thing I can do to get over this. And I rang his lovers. I had the numbers in his diary. And the first one answered and she knew immediately who I was. And she already knew that he had passed away. It's not him calling, is it? because he's underground now.

And it was from his phone, I guess. I guess. I can't remember now. And I said to her, look, I knew he meant a lot to you because this woman had been in his life for longer than I had been because he had known her for much longer. I wanted to let you know that the funeral is tomorrow and I wanted you to somehow be able to be part of that

even though you're over there. And she just said, you've just taken this huge weight off me. I feel so relieved. I felt so terrible. And then I rang another one and she said the same thing. No, I think. Rubbish. She was married and she knew that you existed.

She's sorry and has the weight on her shoulder because you've called her out on it. But you did that so nicely. Did you ever call any of these women and not be such a beautiful person? Did you ever call them and say, oh, you bitch? No, yeah, but you really hurt me. You should be ashamed. Did you ever take that tactic? No, I didn't.

And there was one, I really actually had empathy for her because her husband had just also died, very terrible circumstances. And I really believe that she genuinely felt terrible for me. And we were basically in the same boat. Suddenly here we are widows. So we actually kept writing to each other for a while back and forth. But then she just kept telling me about her problems with her husband. I thought, yeah, that's enough now.

That's not serving me. You're like, I'm not here to be your support person. Yeah, that's right. yeah but it was sort of like well we're all in this together so we all loved the same man yeah and i think the first one i rang i think she was just really embarrassed and you could hear the embarrassment and that was enough she was really embarrassed yeah and the knowing that you kirsten thank you so much for coming and for sharing your story i mean i think everyone who listens to this is going to go home and if they're in a relationship is going to have that conversation with their

partner what would you do 100 because it was the first thing i thought when i saw your book and i saw the title and your generosity your empathy your kindness absolutely exudes out of you like it is such a beautiful thing and and I don't think that everybody would respond in the way that you have that's for sure you know I think there is a lot of people out there who would hold on to that anger and and hold on to that fury yeah but that's actually thank you for saying that but I think of it as I say I had to save my own life and if I had stayed that angry woman that wouldn't have served me you know and I was getting old I was looking in the mirror going do I want to look like do I want all these lines these anger lines no what can I do so well it is called

loving my lying dying cheating husband and it is available at all good bookstores we'll put a link in the show notes as well for you thank you so much for coming and being part of the pod thank you so much for having me We'll be right back.