Love, marriage and a charming deceitful husband ........

......... Tears rolled down Helga's cheeks, she had been weeping softly for a few hours that night. Yesterday she called in sick and cried most of the day. Her husband Maarten told her that he was leaving her at breakfast. That is when the tears started to flow. Twelve years and Maarten wanted out? Why? He had told her that she was the love of his life so often over the years.

Helga thought they were happy, she was happy being the major income earner while Maarten looked after Anja. We have been through so much together, how can he walk away from me, his wife and our beautiful precious daughter?

She sat at her little kitchen table in Brisbane, Queensland feeling deep despondency, she was on her own far away from her family in East Germany. There was no way she could jump on a plane to go home and talk with her parents. Helga recalls her father's doubt with Maarten, he was never really accepting of him. While her mother was completely in love with him, Maarten was such a charmer.

It only took three months for Helga to fall in love with Maarten so it was easy for her to say yes to his marriage proposal. She believed him when he told her that his first wife was a hag, that he never loved her. They left East Germany to live in Holland after the wedding breakfast. Helga recalls her excitement, getting out of East Germany with Hitler and the Nazis talk of separating Germany.

But Helga found out very early in the marriage that Maarten did not work, he was a charmer. It was up to her as a qualified Engineer to be the income earner. Two years later Maarten and Helga immigrated to Australia, Anja was born in Brisbane nine years ago. Helga had found work in a drafting firm when Anja was 6 moths. She loved her work and was still there.

I will get through this, I have to for Anja's sake. Maarten is not going to help, I know that he isn't even going to see Anja. I have always known Maarten was weak, I accepted it. But now that he has left me for another woman I feel like a fool. But then, his marriage proposal allowed me to leave East Germany before the wall was built. I got out, thank goodness.



I accept that marrying Maarten was my fate, it was a choice I made. I will make the best of a bad situation. Thank goodness I don't have to pretend anymore, my future is now parenting Anja.

Cheers and Blessings

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The view from a top restaurant in Valparaiso, Chile.