Vanessa Feltz Explains Devastation Of Discovering Ex Partner's Affair In A Newspaper | This Morning

[Music] with matt hancock dominating the news it's important to remember the long-lasting effects uh an affair has on the other person in the marriage well finding out that your partner has been cheating can be devastating and often it can come as a complete shock we'll see women that know that all too well are journalists rosie green and of course our very own vanessa phelps thanks for being here to talk about this and actually you see things like this in the news and you just think if you've gone through anything like this you see those headlines you see those images and it must be very triggering vanessa i imagine your reactions very much so because i i was in this situation exactly the same um as martha hancock whereby well i i think she thought she was happily married i believe she didn't think that there were any problems in her marriage and then she found out in a newspaper and that's exactly what happened to me i i thought i was one of the lucky ones you know thought i would have had a lovely marriage actually and i was incredibly grateful for it and and then i got this phone call on my answer phone and it was a columnist at the daily mirror sue carroll the late sue carroll saying vanessa please sit down unfortunately um in tomorrow's newspaper there is going to be a picture of your husband with the woman that he's having an affair with that's the first i had in that moment like what goes through my whole life just collapsed and just just shattered into a million pieces it was absolutely astounding i can't even 21 years later i can barely even describe to you the shock of it nicole you called him yeah and i and i said to the girls and they were 10 and 13 and i said do not worry this is definitely a mistake i will ring your father and and i'm sure he'll he'll he'll tell us everything's all right and i did and he denied everything and then about 10 minutes later he phoned back and said yes we are lovers yes i'm having an affair yes yes and that was that and that was that and then and then nothing's ever the same again you know your future is gone your past you realize was probably built on an absolute tissue of lies because wherever you thought you were or whatever you thought you were doing wasn't true and everybody else is reading it over their frosties the next morning the whole country your television programs are talking about it and it's it's your own heart it's your own life it's your love it's it's it is the thing that you believed in with every ounce of your being that you thought was you know all that you are and there it is and it's people's entertainment the next day it's really a very devastating which is where i assume because we don't know what goes on behind closed doors we assume that that's the place that martha hancock finds herself in whether who knows she she may have known she may not have known you know she may have had her thoughts about it we don't know that aspect of this story what we do know is it it's all over the papers and all over the top and what we also know is um you know for the children what what it what happens i mean i'll tell you what i can only tell you what happened to mine which was they came back from school and photographers jumped out from behind the bushes and there were lights popping it was it was the autumn it was dark and light you know they and they absolutely jumped out of their skins and i felt so unprepared to guide them through it because the whole thing was a massive shock to me you know you can't be the grown up helping your children cope with something if you don't even know what's happening in your own life and so i mean rosie you would echo everything i imagine that vanessa just said because you had exactly the same situation happened to you again a shock the rug and in a way your body goes into shock in the same way it would do with a sort of physical accident so you kind of numb i was numb and you sort of leave your body almost you feels like you're kind of watching yourself on tv so it's quite interesting the way the brain and the body respond but yeah you're right you know seeing those images is quite triggering it's a real trauma how did you find out i found out with through text messages i think everyone you know everyone finds out that way these days and um yeah i just remember the absolute shock and you know it's sort of perfect family scene and then running into the garden and you know trying to think about the children at the same time well you're going through this immense shock and trauma it's just so hard but i didn't have the extra aspect of the whole world yeah and so when it comes to the children because straight away when you see this story it's exactly where my head goes oh my god there's children involved here how do you even begin to explain something like that well for me i had i had uh luckily i had a certain amount of time because it wasn't all over the press so i mean i think that is particularly hard you have to have that because i think again we don't know exactly what they're going through but in in the aftermath of something like this all these truths will come out slowly so how long's the affair been going on was it physical was it emotional was it all those things they're probably unpicking all that at the moment and that's where her head will be at trying to trying to get certainty well i know that my elder daughter was on the school coach for example and it was being discussed on the capital radio breakfast show that was being broadcast on the coach as she was driving to school you don't even think about things do you you don't think about it i mean is there any possibility that those hancock children will escape the discussion of this it's on every paper it's that every tv outlet they can't possibly get it this it affected you mentally and physically yeah absolutely we were just talking about this weren't we that um you kind of think of it as a mental thing but actually heartbreak can be very uh very physical as well so for me i lost two stone in as many months you know i just remember my kind of running leggings were flapping around i got racing heart you know i kind of had this you know surge of adrenaline i think you know it kind of lowers your immunity so you kind of you get sick more easily so you're trying to look after the children you're trying to do all those things but you're so physically depleted every single thing she said i agree with every word that rosie says i felt as if my heart was physically broken i felt like i could i could feel the blood trying to make its way to the other chamber of the heart i could barely breathe i couldn't read a book for about four years i couldn't sit down and relax enough to actually read i felt as if i i felt as if every cell in my body had changed from the shock of it all and i i assure you i'm not exaggerating it it was no it's true i think there's been very recent research that shows that actually it changes your heart cells it changes your blood levels it changes all kinds of things so people present at hospital with kind of heart attack type symptoms and it's so it's a very real thing in germany they give you like they have a proper name for it they give you a few days off yes and i say one other thing that really doesn't help is people assuming you kind of must have known you know you must have turned a blind eye and they say things like oh they always know you know the wife always knows all the husband always knows i i can assure you it's not true you don't remember people fill in the blanks don't they so you've got this back story this university they've known each other so you know people love to discuss and dissect when they know nothing about anything and they're making up a narrative which is well they've been together since then then clearly haven't they and of course like you say all of that will be extremely painful yes and you just and you just you just won't know but the idea that people kind of assume that you turned a blind eye you know there must have been huge clues that you purposely overlooked that isn't true i think if the person doing the deceiving has an awful lot to lose if they get found out as matt hancock most certainly has had look what he's lost that enormously you know impressive job and the and and the and the you know the reputation everything else if they really have a lot to lose they can be very very clever in deceiving you what to uh what this morning what were your listeners saying my listeners on the radio they were absolutely horrified they were betrayed there was a lady who phoned me whose sister died in a hospice her own mother wasn't able to visit her daughter who died because of this people who couldn't visit relatives and care homes um very particularly dads who weren't allowed to be present at the birds of their children lots of single people who would have liked to get off with people and cop off with them but we're told by matt hancock firmly no there's no getting off with anybody that you don't already have a relationship with in your bubble i mean people were so upset and so angry when they thought of what they'd sacrificed and they thought of how obedient they had been and they thought of how they were doing it for the greater good and then they saw that lousy video and that horrible picture and they felt personally betrayed and you know and many people also questioned the prime minister having said i will draw a line under it because they felt that he should have learned from the dominic cummings anger and hurt and frustration that erupted after that you know what kind of a message was that to send out no it's absolutely right those are your thoughts when you saw it the first time i mean i i agree i i sort of i really i think this sort of debate has gone to like whether it's social you know whether it's about social distancing or whether it's about the morality of what he's done and my feelings are that actually if you can lie to the person who is closest to you who's looking after your children who is you know i mean again we don't know exactly what's going on but then how you can lie to the nation right so as a politician i do believe you should be held to certain standards when um when sort of coming out the other side of this which both of you have done and i know rosie you've found solace and kind of sharing your story with many people and have helped a lot of people you're always incredibly honest about it as well vanessa what what happens going forward i mean you're in a wonderful relationship there is love on the other side clearly yeah did it take a long time to trust someone i think so but what i what i told my girls was you know don't let this damage us and i i said i believe in living happily ever after because i really do and i believe in love and i believe in good men and good women who can be faithful and can keep their word i really do believe in it and i said i would absolutely be devastated if this were to make you cynical and bitter yeah and you felt that all men were evil and there's no such thing as love i don't think that's true i really don't i have every faith that you will find someone lovely to love you and that i will as well and i don't want us to be you know to be tainted nervous that's when i first got botox as well because i because my face just was like i was so upset that my whole face looked like it had sort of furrowed up like kind of like that and i thought i don't want the mark of his infidelity on my face but god said give me some blinking stuff in my head i'm not kidding we all went blonde well anyone who came to visit us immediately went blonde i did anything i could do to cheer the children up we were allowed to swear a lot at home you know just to kind of liven it up and not be in a house that felt like a morgue really did you have trust issues after that do you know interestingly i mean obviously initially i was kind of grappling around with this sort of betrayal but actually now i do feel like the breakup has been a gift in a way because actually i was holding on so tight to the marriage and i felt like i couldn't i needed that to survive and to function and i needed that safety and security whereas now actually i feel like i'm kind of enough by myself and if i have a lovely relationship you know if i then actually that's a blessing but i don't have to hold so tight onto it it's funny isn't it how life works sometimes thank you both

Channel: This Morning

Views: 312,873

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Id: sehu0VpC-80

Length: 10min 43sec (643 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 28 2021