There’s a manual for just about everything these days, but after being “unceremoniously dumped” at the age of 67 by her husband of 26 years, Pat Backley found there was no guide – so she wrote The Abandoned Wives Handbook.
Now 72, Pat hopes her latest book will support others navigating the loss and grief of an unexpected split.
“After the rawness and shock subsided, I realised that perhaps it could help other women to know that I have survived and even flourished,” says Pat, candidly sharing with the Weekly how her marriage ended.
It was 2018, and the author and her now ex-husband Graham were visiting their homeland, England, for their daughter Lucy’s Masters’ graduation.
All smiles as a young bride.
“At the ceremony, her friends were saying, ‘Your parents are so cute – they’re so lovely.’
“Then two weeks later, we were in a hotel and he was very quiet while making a cup of tea one morning. When I asked, ‘Are you alright?’ he replied, ‘Actually, no. I don’t love you any more. I haven’t loved you properly for years and I’m not coming back to New Zealand.'”
Pat says she was so caught off guard, she’s still surprised she didn’t have a heart attack then and there. “That was it, finished – and he’s not really spoken to me since. When I say it out loud, it sounds horrendous, like how did I live through that?”
What followed was the most challenging period of her life as Pat returned to Aotearoa alone. She emailed friends before taking off to let them know Graham had left her and she was coming home solo. But it was such a far-fetched thought, many believed it to be a joke.
Back in Auckland, where Pat had initially moved for Graham’s work in 2010, she began the solo task of selling their home, dividing and dissolving the life they’d shared for almost three decades.
“Being abandoned is so hard,” tells Pat, adding there’s no magic fix but time does help. “It’s so public and usually you don’t have any warning. It was very gradual.
“There was no one day that everything was better, but last November I was talking to my daughter Lucy and she mentioned sending her father a message for his birthday. I’d completely forgotten and it was a real highlight. For the first time in 30 years, I hadn’t thought about his birthday.”
Holidays help heal her heart.
Discovering her passion for writing also proved hugely helpful in the healing process. During the 2020 Covid lockdowns, like others, Pat found herself alone, eating chocolate, drinking wine and watching rubbish TV. “Then I said to myself, ‘This is ridiculous – get a grip. You’re going to wear yourself into your grave.’ So I wrote a book and I’ve now written seven in two years,” she laughs.
“Writing has saved my sanity and I am well documented as saying I’m going to write till I die.”
The Abandoned Wives Handbook is her latest accomplishment, detailing the stages after a relationship ends in alphabetical order from anxious to zen.
Pat shares honestly that recounting the ordeal while writing was truly awful, but she was determined to keep going.
“It was horrendous, and I did wonder why on earth I was putting myself through it and reliving the trauma. But I wrote it from the heart, so it’s all quite meaningful and I’m pretty proud of it now.”
Women have contacted Pat to say how “enormously helpful” the book, already released in the US, has been.
These days, with so many writing projects on the go – her eighth book is underway – Pat is never short of something to do. And when she’s not writing, she delights in spending time with daughter Lucy, 29, who moved home to NZ after her parents’ divorce.
Daughter Lucy is “the love of my life”, says Pat.
“My biggest fear was that this would put her off relationships, but it’s made her stronger and without us discussing it in great detail, she’s learnt a lot from my experiences,” shares Pat.
“Lucy is the love of my life and all the time she was growing up, I made sure to show her she’s very important and precious, and to not give her heart away as easily as I did. Now she’s with this absolutely lovely man, who adores her and she him.”
Pat is immensely proud of Lucy and despite everything, she remains optimistic. “I’m not a cynic – I still believe in love. I love to see people happy together,” she says, adding, “I have now become the woman I was always meant to be… a strong, resilient survivor.”
