Dear Sabrina,
In April it will be 3 and a half years since I found out you were having an affair with my husband. I discovered your secret ménage in August 03 but for Enrico to take the decision to not to return home any more it must have been going on for a very long time indeed. I’d hazard a guess at a year.
During that year you worked for us at our family run hotel www.clubhotelalpino.it working as a barmaid in our wine bar and therefore in close contact with Enrico every day until the early hours of the morning, drinking, laughing and having fun with him. You had all the time in the world to get to know him and me and our two children Thomas and Megan.
You put up a façade during that year because many a time we sat at the bar and spoke of this and that, I would ask if you’d eaten and tell you to go and eat something in the kitchen worried that you couldn’t survive a long shift on a sandwich. Silly me you actually had an appointment to go to dinner with my husband later that evening.
You shared your secret with many of our staff and although I didn’t know why at the time I could feel their scorn and their sniggers behind my back. Your friend Katia took a particularly nasty photo of me showing how much weight I’d put on that summer and I caught her showing it to my husband with such glee in her eyes. Funny how you dropped Katia the minute you got together with Enrico?
I’m sure Enrico laid his case to you extremely well with military precision leaving no doubt in your eyes that our flagging relationship was finished, how he was so over me and ready for something new. Trouble is he never told me. I waited four nights for him to come home. Four days he wouldn’t answer my calls, he hid from me when I came down to the hotel. After an 18 year relationship I had to go and find out for myself. Enrico was never a courageous man.
The minute I realised what had happened, so many things fell into place. That was why he hadn’t wanted to share a bed with me on our camper holiday to Puglia in June, he had said it was too hot but the truth is he couldn’t bear to be near me. That was why he had gone on a ski trip in January on his own, it wasn’t to source out other hotels, it was to be with you. I can remember him calling me from the hotel and raving about the wonderful food and asking after the children. What a poor, sly man.
All of my closest friends couldn’t understand why I had it in for you so badly. Leave her! They told me. She’s done nothing. It’s him you should be angry with.
Trouble is, it wasn’t the first time he’d betrayed me, I had tried to leave him so many times unsuccessfully returning for the benefit of the children, the family or because foolishly I believed him when he said I was the only woman for him and we could make this work.
You see, you never stopped to think for a minute that I loved him and I cherished our family. All you could think of was yourself and what you wanted. You broke my family and destroyed everything I held dear without a care in the world. I wonder if your mother knows the truth or has she also had the watered down version you tried to pass off on my children? If she is a woman worth her salt she would be ashamed of you as I would be if Megan ever does anything similar to another family.
When I heard you were all going to Mexico last October it made my blood boil. Did you know we were supposed to go there for our belated honeymoon? In 1997, I ran up those steps to our front door (now yours) with the flight tickets in my hand. It was to be our first BIG holiday without the children as we’d never had a honeymoon. I had a 21 day itinerary going from Citta del Mexico to Merida which I had spent weeks perfecting. I bet he didn’t tell you that. He cancelled it, said he wasn’t interested in Mexico and used his ill mother as an excuse to blow the whole lot saying we couldn’t get babysitters.
I miss my children so much it kills me. I think of you in our house, cooking in my kitchen, using my washing machine, sitting on my sofa and watching our TV, it makes me so bitter. I think of my children needing help with their homework that you don’t give, the telling off they need when they’re in front of the TV too much or out too late at night, this you don’t do. I think of the cuddling they crave and the listening they need so much in this delicate moment of their lives and know you don’t do this either. What do you do for them? Enrico has always sadly lacked in this department too so my kids are the ones to suffer all of this at the end of the day.
It took me some time but I made a new life for myself, I had too. My choice was to stay in Folgaria and watch you step into my shoes or leave and start afresh. Well I did leave, I came home to England and I found someone who makes Enrico look a very sorry effort of a man in comparison. I’m happy and finally fulfilled with a true relationship based on honesty, trust and true love.
I’m sorry to say I don’t think you’ll ever be happy with Enrico as he is so selfish. He will never have time for you like he never had for us and he will always come first in his life. He has proven the extent of his dishonesty to you, shown you how callous he is and you have glimpsed just how nasty he can be. Not exactly the nicest qualities for a man to have, be warned.
In 2003, when I found out, I wanted to kill you. Now it’s 2007 and I don’t care about you anymore. On the 14th of February, Valentines Day, we have our final hearing here in England and our marriage will be quantified and shared out. The End. For you it will signify a beginning, I believe in what comes around goes around and how in every choice we make we must accept the consequences of that choice. I’m interested to see just what yours will be?
Marianne
