'I started earning more than my husband… he left as soon as my first pay came in'

Melanie had her whole life planned out.

After watching – perhaps a few too many – episodes of Ally McBeal as a youngster, she decided she was going to become a hotshot lawyer when she left school.

"I could see my whole life," she says. "I was going to wear lots of cute fitted suits and carry a briefcase around and solve all these amazing cases. I was going to live in a cool apartment in the big city and somehow still have a big family with some other hotshot lawyer who I would then start a new cool law firm with. I was a teenager so that all sounded very sophisticated."

Melanie joined the debate team, studied hard and was soon a year into her law degree.

But then life had other plans.

"My mum got sick," says Melanie. "She was a single mum – my dad left when I was four. I've only seen him a handful of times since, because he almost immediately had another family – four kids – with another woman.

"But that's a whole other Divorce Diary. I have two younger half-siblings through my mum – they were pretty young, still at high school, when Mum got sick. Mum's husband – their Dad – sadly died a year earlier, so I put my studies on hold to stay home, look after the kids and mum and work."

Melanie got some office administration work to help with the bills, plus her mum worked as a nail technician and would see clients at their house – she'd taught Melanie over the years so she took over some of her clients when her mum was too sick.

And then, time just seemed to drift. Melanie's mum grew sicker.

Then, two years later, her mother passed away. Melanie now found herself responsible for her two siblings and running the household. She now worked full time in a salon. She got her sisters jobs there too, cleaning and answering the phones.

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"I'd always intended on going back to school and doing law, but life was so busy," she says.

It was around this time that she met Brett.

Brett was five years older and had a good stable job and a big, happy family. They fell in love pretty quickly and Melanie loved being a part of his family. They opened their arms to her two siblings too and included them in family celebrations. Two years after dating, they got married.

"A lot of people thought I was a bit young," she says. "But I'd lived a whole lifetime by then. I felt like an old lady inside."

Brett wanted to have kids, and it was Melanie's goal too – but definitely not an immediate one. Her sisters were growing up – one had moved away for university, the other had a flat and was working full time. She wanted a good few years of not being responsible for anyone else.

"I wanted to feel young for a change," says Melanie. "I'd had some fun as a teenager but I'd spent the bulk of my twenties as a mum already."

Brett and Melanie had been married for four years – together for six – when she got a letter out of the blue. It was from her dad.

"He'd come into a bit of money and obviously had a lot of guilt about what had happened with me and my mum," says Melanie.

He knew she'd wanted to go into law and had dropped out to look after her family and he wanted to know if it was something she still dreamed about. If so, he wanted to pay her full tuition, plus living costs to cover her while she went back to university.

"I had some mixed feelings about it, but, I still remember the absolute elation I felt reading that," she says. "That gut reaction of wanting to do it so badly, really told me everything. Yes, I felt odd taking the money, but, I also felt a complete buzz of excitement."

Brett however didn't seem totally excited. He suggested they take the money but use it to pay down a house deposit.

"Thankfully, my dad came back saying the offer was just for my schooling – he'd pay the university fees, for books, a new laptop and give me a weekly allowance, but I had to finish the course," she says.

So, Melanie re-enrolled and got in.

"If I'm honest, I felt things start to drift with Brett from that moment," says Melanie. "He said he was excited for me and acted it up in front of other people, but I could tell it wasn't sincere. He'd make 'jokes' about how long it would take me to drop out this time – which we'd end up in arguments over. He wanted to be trying for a baby. We had an agreement that we'd start trying when I finished school. I was doubling up on contraception over that time – so worried something would happen."

But, when their marriage really fell apart was years later, when Melanie's first pay came in.

"That's what did it, I'm sure. That was the final straw," says Melanie. "My pay was now above what his was. He hated it. He said I thought I was so much better than him and he couldn't stick around in the relationship a second longer.

"But I didn't think like that at all. He was just so insecure. He didn't want a lawyer for a wife – he wanted someone who earned less than him, who made him feel smart and needed. I didn't see that at the time – I was so hurt he wanted to leave. I knew there were many problems in our relationship, but I thought once I wasn't studying, things would improve."

They quite quickly went their separate ways.

"Brett really showed his true colours afterwards too," says Melanie. "He told a lot of people this ridiculous story that he was the one who supported me through uni and then the moment I landed a job I dumped him. Some of his family and friends somehow believed this – they completely blocked me out of their lives. It was really devastating at the time."

Now, Melanie is in her late forties and has since remarried.

"I'm a solicitor now – and a working mother," she says. "I had a little boy when I was 42, with my husband, who is a barrister. That's the reason I wanted to tell my story – although anonymously – I wanted anyone who has been through a divorce to have hope. When Brett and I divorced, I thought it might be it for me – I wouldn't have that someone to grow old with, and I certainly wouldn't have children.

"But I have that. My husband and I met – through work – when I was 40. I thought my ship had sailed for children, but, a year after meeting we thought we'd see what might happen, and I was pregnant within a few months. Our son has two older siblings, my step-children, who absolutely adore him.

"My husband is loving and kind. He isn't threatened by my career, or my success. I hear him talking me up and bragging about work I've done, or what a good mother I am, even when he thinks I can't hear him. We have both been married before, plus we've seen through our careers the gruesome insides of a fair few divorces. We have our eyes wide open, we know what love and a marriage take.

"My career is far from what I thought it would be, watching Ally McBeal all those years ago, but I'm thankful it's the path I chose, and the path my father got me back on."

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