HOW DO YOU GRIEVE AN EX?

When her ex-husband died, Susan Shaw, 70, felt part of her history had been erased

- JOHANNA BELL

Hiding in my bedroom alone, I desperately fought back tears. I’d just got off the phone with my son, and the news he’d told me had hit me harder than I ever expected it would. His dad, my ex-husband, had passed away. I’d been separated from him for 18 years and had been happily married to someone else for 11. So why was I feeling such raw emotion, as though I’d lost a huge part of myself?

I first met Georges Kalaitzakis in 1973 when I was 20 years old and he was 27. I’d joined the ballet company where he was a stagehand and we got along brilliantly. We had our daughter Natalie in 1977. But when she was three she died in a car accident. Such a traumatic loss brought Georges and me even closer and over the next few years we married, had our two sons, Antony and Jon, and moved to Crete, where Georges was originally from. We were happy in Greece – despite being diagnosed with emphysema Georges took various tourism jobs and I set up a dance school.

Then in 2001, Antony, then 19, was showing promise in tennis and we needed more money for his training, so I returned to the UK to work over the summer holidays.

SEPARATE WAYS

After six months I realised I didn't want to go back to Crete. I still don't really know why it all fell apart, I just knew I needed to be back in the UK. Georges was working for a well established excursions company, which he didn't want to give up. It was a really hard decision, but we agreed to separate and the boys stayed with Georges while I stayed in England.