How I went from Blushing Bride to the Bride of Frankenstein | by Veritas | Jul, 2025

My Ten-Year Tale

I lost my voice.

Not metaphorically. Not in a whimsical, eat-pray-love way. It was taken from me. First by shock, then by shame, and finally by fear.

But I’m ready to reclaim it now. Maybe. I’ve been putting this off, but today would have been my twelfth wedding anniversary. It seems as good a time as any to begin telling the truth.

I’m writing this because it might help someone. Maybe it’ll help you pause for a moment, set aside the rose-tinted glasses, and see — really see — what’s right in front of your eyes. All the things I failed to see, but which became so glaringly obvious in the aftermath, I wondered if I’d been in a trance for a decade. Honestly, I’m a smart person, but some of the lies I accepted will make you question my intelligence. They made me question it too.

This is a story of love, passion, lies and crime. If it were a Netflix series, we’d be well into Season Three by now. So buckle up. It’s quite the ride.

My writing style is honest and witty, and I’m even funnier in person — who knows, maybe one day I’ll take this on tour. My own one-woman stand-up show, a la Mrs Maisel. Although, I get anxiety belly… think Delhi belly without the dodgy curry. I don’t think I could host a comedy set from the bathroom. Probably best I stick to writing.

To protect the identity of others, I’ll be using pseudonyms. Starting with DH for my ex-husband. The Mumsnet crowd might think it’s strange that I’m calling him “Darling Husband.” I’m not. In this story, DH stands for “Dick Head” — a far more fitting term of endearment.

There was a time DH meant something else to me. Dashingly Handsome. Dependable Hero. If you saw my social media posts from back then, they were positively nauseating. Here’s an example, courtesy of Facebook Memories — this gem popped up today:

“I asked the universe for a man who will treat me like a princess, and I received one who treats me like a queen — and our son like the most precious being on earth. The more I know you, the more I love you.”

The irony that I didn’t know this man at all is not lost on me.

So where did it all go wrong? Or was it never right to begin with? These are the questions I ask myself night after night. So let’s start at the start. The day we met.

Gambia, December 2011.

Picture the scene: I’m on a girls’ trip, recovering from an abusive relationship, ready for a fresh start. I hear a man say “Hi” as I walk past his sun-lounger. I ignore him, as any seasoned Londoner would. Then I mentally remind myself I’ll never meet anyone if I ignore every man who tries to talk to me. So I turn around.

That’s when I notice the six-pack. Tick tick on my vision board. I hurry back to my friend and tell her about him. We both glance over. He “looks alright,” we agree — until he starts laughing obnoxiously loudly, cigarette in hand. Smoking is a hard no for me, and combined with the overall loudness, I’m put off. My friend wastes no time reminding me about the psychic who predicted I’d meet the love of my life before the end of the year. She jokes that this could be him. We have a good laugh.

A couple of days later, he walks past again, and I return his “hello.” Unlike me, he stops for a chat. He’s easy to talk to. Humble. I notice he’s wearing an ethnic necklace and he tells me he spent the day in a local village with the hotel security guard’s family. He cooked with the women, played football with the kids, and shared a meal with them. My heart swoons. This speaks to the core of who I am.

He shares that he’s on the trip alone. It was supposed to be his honeymoon, but his fiancée had confessed to cheating. They agreed they didn’t feel strongly enough about each other and had rushed the engagement. They broke it off amicably. He says no one even knew about the engagement — not even his parents, who he claims to be close to.

That should have been the first red flag. But something you’ll learn about me — I’m a red flag ignorer. In fact, I’m probably that meme of the woman running straight towards the red flags. My therapist and I are working on it.

He invites me for fruit on the beach. I insist my friend comes too — I’m a 90s kid, we don’t leave our friends behind. The three of us sit together. I make her sit in the middle so she won’t feel like a third wheel. Haha! I had no game! We all get on well. He invites us out that night with other friends from the hotel and we agreed to tag along.

As it turned out, I was so nervous I gave myself an anxious belly and spent the night in the bathroom instead.

We meet again at the airport. We have hours to kill before the flight. I find myself opening up. Really opening up. I tell him about the abusive relationship I’ve just escaped. I share details. Painful ones. The kind you don’t usually voice aloud.

He responds exactly as you’d hope. He listens. He sympathises. He says all the right things. And I remember thinking, “Wow. He really gets it.”

Spoiler: he didn’t.

Looking back, I realise I’d made the biggest mistake. I’d handed him the blueprint. I told him what I did and didn’t want in a relationship. I thought I was being open and vulnerable with a kind and honest man. I wasn’t. This was no ordinary man. This was something else entirely.

Next time — The First Date… smitten, or love bombed?