POLE DANCING helped me through my divorce

When Debbie Connor's relationship with her husband broke down, she found a unique way to heal her heartbreak

- MISHAAL KHAN, GEORGINA FULLER

As I walked out into the centre of the room, I took my position on the ground with my arms draped across my knees and waited for my cue. The opening chords of the song This Woman’s Work by Kate Bush began to play as I started to move. It was June 2022 and this performance was one of the most meaningful moments of my life. When it feels like everything is falling apart, you desperately search for a relief from the pain. And for me, that relief came in the form of pole dancing.

On a night out in 1998, I met a man I envisaged spending the rest of my life with. I was a hopeless romantic and in the grubby student union bar at the University of Northampton, I fell in love.

We travelled together and settled down, me as a primary school teacher and him as a product designer, before we welcomed a baby boy in May 2009, followed by a daughter two years later and another son in 2014. Our wedding in August 2016 was beautiful, made all the more special by having our three children beside us.

But while we enjoyed years of happy marriage, I sometimes felt like I had left myself behind. After having the children, I was only working part-time and I began to feel uninteresting, boring and unattractive. My relationship with my husband began to suffer too and we grew further and further apart.