How I Discovered My Wife Wanted Me Dead

Discovering my partner was having an extra-marital affair was pretty earth-shattering. Hearing what sounded like the beginnings of a plot to kill me had the effect of pushing me over the edge.

Ever since I found out she was having an affair I became super alert. One day when I was walking from the house to my car with my office telephone in my hand she accused me of having bugged the phone and threatened me with all manner of legal action.

It had never entered my mind to bug the phone, but I thought that if all she was talking about was the price of sausages at the local supermarket, where would be the harm? Why would she be so afraid about that?

Her behaviour had the effect of making me determined to somehow listen in to her calls. It was in effect rather like The Beast in The Beauty and the Beast telling the beautiful young girl, “Don’t go near the West Wing.” What did she do? Of course, she went where he had told her not to. What did I do? The same. And where did that get me?

That led me to something that even to this day I am not comfortable with. Amid the horrible persecution I was subjected to, I seriously considered taking my own life. My reasoning was appalling.

The last thing I wanted was to die at the hands of some lunatic or her lover. Suddenly the thought came into my head that I would rather kill myself and in that way, at least have some sort of say in the manner in which I died.

The next thing I knew I was at my younger sister’s house, in the upstairs bathroom sitting naked on the window sill about to leap. I was so depressed, I had momentarily completely lost my mind. What saved me?

My sister’s five-year-old daughter came into the bathroom and saw me. That had the effect of bringing me to my senses, sort of. I simply couldn’t commit suicide in front of an innocent child.

I later reflected that God had sent me an angel to stop me from doing the unthinkable. And so here I am, thirty years later, fully recovered and blissfully happily remarried to a lovely Japanese woman who loves the bones of me, as indeed I do her.

Tim