My husband left me last Christmas. How do I get closure? | Ask Philippa

Give yourself permission to grieve, not just for the end of your marriage, but also for the man you thought you knew

The question Last Christmas, my husband left me. He’d been on a few festive nights out with work and I noticed a change in his behaviour. When I asked what was wrong, he told me that a conversation we’d had a couple of months previously, whereby I talked about divorce, had been playing on his mind. I didn’t want a divorce, but I was just trying to get him to see that I felt he was neglecting me with his obsession over losing weight (which he didn’t need to lose) and exercising. Before the exercise obsession started he was my best friend and supporter, so this was such a shock.

He never grieved for his father – a very difficult man – who died earlier in the year. The day after he left he sent an email saying he couldn’t stop thinking of me talking about divorce and he wanted to separate. I was shattered by this. Where had it come from? No amount of apology from me had any affect.

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