Jet-setting to Europe for a six-week honeymoon was the perfect ending to the special day when Tanya Stewart wed her or Right. After seeing the sights of Italy, Paris and the UK, the excited bride couldn’t wait to return home from the romantic jaunt to start a new life with husband Simon*.
But as soon as the couple arrived back, Tanya (33) received news from the man she had just married that shook her to the core. “He said he wanted to chat. He was visibly upset,” says the Auckland woman. “He looked nervous and he was crying. I thought, ‘Wow, this must be serious.'”
Then Simon dropped a bombshell.
“He said he couldn’t stay with me, he wanted to leave, and that there was someone else.
“I was thinking, ‘When did he have the time to find someone else?'”
The realisation that she was being dumped the day after her honeymoon was hard for Tanya to comprehend.
“It was very bad timing. I had returned from our honeymoon excited about our future. I was thinking about lots of things – buying a house, having children and starting a family. And it was all taken from me straightaway,” explains Tanya.
“When he told me, everything was moving in slow motion. I was standing in a dream-like state thinking, ‘What just happened?’
“I called my mum to tell her Simon was leaving me, and she couldn’t believe it.”
When asked by the Weekly about the reason for his marriage break-up, Simon refused to comment, saying only, “It’s nobody’s business.”
The Kiwi couple met while at university and were together for 10 years before they married in front of 70 close family and friends at a Tauranga winery in 2004.
At the time of their marriage, they were living in Australia, and most of Tanya’s family was in New Zealand when she heard the news. “I wanted the support of my family around me, and I couldn’t have that.”
While enjoying the romantic sights of Europe and even before the wedding, Tanya didn’t pick up on any signs that Simon was getting cold feet. “You don’t really know what guys are thinking, you can only guess what’s going on.
“I was so excited about getting married, I thought everything was fine. And if I did sense anything, I just assumed he was showing wedding-day jitters, like many guys do.”
Tanya moved out of the couple’s apartment as soon as Simon left her, but says she was determined to save her new marriage. “After a year of counselling, I didn’t feel we were getting any closer – I felt a real distance between us. It wasn’t working and I realised I needed to go back to New Zealand to be with my family.”
Despite their short marriage, Tanya wasn’t granted an annulment and had to go through the process of divorcing Simon. “I told him, ‘I’ll go to New Zealand and you’ll forget me.’ But he said, ‘I’ll never forget you.’
“Today, we don’t have any animosity. It happened and we have both moved on.”
Tanya’s devastating experiencing didn’t deter her from walking down the aisle again.
In February 2010, she married another man after dating him for three years, but was left devastated once again when the marriage ended in November after only nine months. “When my second husband told me he wanted to leave, I dropped to the ground – I was shocked. I couldn’t believe I had to go through it again.”
Tanya believes horrible break-ups are extremely common, and staying strong is the only way to survive them.
She is now cautious about being in relationships and won’t get married again. “I’ve become less trusting. I need to think about what I want, rather than trying to pretend to be a person that someone else wants me to be.
“Even though it was really hard, I’m still a very strong person. And I know I can survive anything. You just have to get through the grief and the anger.
“No matter what happens, if you’re strong, you can get through it.”
- Name has been changed
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