The day I resigned from my marriage: Kate Benson had a gilded lifestyle and two beautiful children but her banker husband was cold and distant. So she wrote him an ultimatum in the only language he'd understand
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Lights were twinkling in the harbour below as I sat down at our beautiful mahogany dining table, took out a sheet of paper and prepared to write the most difficult letter of my life.
My two young daughters were in bed, the maid had gone home for the evening, and I was all alone waiting for my husband, Harry, to come home from his city job.
As my eyes flicked from the panoramic view of one of Hong Kong’s harbours to the exquisite paintings on the walls of our apartment, it was hard to believe that I was contemplating giving all this up. Yet I honestly didn’t know how I could go on.
Kate Benson her husband Harry at their home in Devon
Yes, my ‘job’ as wife and mother gave me every material advantage, but it didn’t give me the one thing I craved: love.
And that’s why I sat down and wrote a letter to my husband resigning from our marriage.
I went through the entire package. In painstaking detail I laid out every one of my duties and every perk. And I ended by telling him that I was giving him six months’ notice.
‘Dear Harry,’ I wrote. ‘I have been your wife for eight years now. I share your bed and make love to you. I shop for food and cook meals for you. I arrange regular dinner parties and entertain for you. I ensure your home is always spotless and your clothes immaculate.
‘I listen attentively when you tell me about your day at the office. I organise holidays and outings for you and the family. I remember family birthdays for you and buy suitable presents.
‘I look after your children. I keep them fed and clean. I oversee their education. I organise tea parties for them and ferry them to play-dates. I take them to play in the park. I bake cakes with them. I read them stories and play endless make-believe games.
‘In return, I have a generous pay package. I have the use — shared with you — of a three- bedroom apartment in one of Hong Kong’s most exclusive neighbourhoods.
I drive a top-of-the- range car. I have annual membership of a country club and access to a swimming pool and to a gym. I have the daily services of a maid. I have a company credit card.’
Itemising each of my perks, I wondered how many other women would jump at the chance of stepping into my shoes.
Or would they — like me — realise that no amount of money can compensate for a loveless marriage?
So how had things gone so desperately wrong?
Kate and Harry Benson with their six children, Rosie, Polly, Grace, Cicely, Charlie and Johnnie
When Harry and I met in 1984 at a Valentine’s Day party, it seemed like fate. Aged 19, I had just returned from Bermuda, where I had been working as an au pair, and was now taking a course at Leith’s Cookery School.
Harry, a 23-year-old pilot with the Royal Navy, had recently returned from active service in the Falklands.
He was mesmerising: handsome, hugely intelligent and with a wonderful dry sense of humour. As we sipped cocktails, I found myself laughing more than I’d ever done in my life.
I’d actually attended the party as the guest of another naval officer, but, seeing the chemistry between us, he tactfully withdrew.
Harry was being posted to sea in three weeks, so our courtship was whirlwind.
We spent as much time as possible together, and when I waved him goodbye, I knew I had fallen hook, line and sinker. I didn’t know how I could bear to be parted from him for six months.
While I wear my heart on my sleeve, Harry was more aloof — but this just added to his attraction.
Even so, I was hurt when whole weeks passed and he didn’t write. It was as though, when I wasn’t around, I didn’t exist.
At the time, I thought he was just playing it ‘cool’. I didn’t realise this was actually a symptom of a deep-seated problem — one that would have serious implications for us a decade later.
Harry’s parents had separated when he was just three, and he was sent to boarding school when he was seven.
The result was that he had grown into a loner — a man who found it virtually impossible to show his emotions.
When Kate first met her husband Harry she thought he was mesmerising: handsome, hugely intelligent and with a wonderful dry sense of humour
But he kept in contact enough for our relationship to develop, and we’d been dating for a year when Harry proposed over a three-course meal that he had cooked himself. I agreed instantly, convinced that I could change him and make him more loving.
We married in June 1986 in the chapel in the grounds of Prestwold Hall, a magnificent country house in Leicestershire — the ancestral home of my godmother.
As my father, John, a lecturer at Loughbrough University, walked me down the aisle, I felt totally blessed.
Weeks later, we found ourselves in Hong Kong, where Harry had been posted as a naval liaison officer. We adored the lifestyle — the wonderful food and the buzz of living in one of the most energetic cities in the world.
In fact, we were so enchanted that Harry decided to quit the Navy and retrain as a stockbroker with the intention of working in Hong Kong, one of the world’s leading financial centres.
We returned briefly to London, where Harry did a crash course in Mandarin and then, in 1988, got a job with investment bank Warburg with a posting to Hong Kong.
I got a job as co-editor of a food magazine there.
I worked full-time until our first daughter, Rosie, was born in May 1991. In 1993, when Polly was born, I became a full-time mum.
It was only then that the cracks in our marriage began to show.
Of course, anyone looking in would think I had a charmed life: a handsome, devoted husband who was a wonderful provider (Harry was earning in excess of £100,000 a year) and two delightful little girls.
Harry’s income paid for a wonderful apartment overlooking Hong Kong’s Deep Water Bay.
I played tennis at my club, and swam in the private pool at our apartment block. We dined out at the best restaurants and, when we travelled, we always stayed in five-star hotels.
But I was desperately lonely.
While Harry had never been a chatterbox, we’d done so much together and I had been so busy working that I’d never really noticed. But now Harry never talked to me.
He never played with the children.
He’d come home from work to find me itching for an adult conversation. But he’d kick off his shoes and get out the latest copy of The Economist.
At weekends, I would pack a picnic and Harry would drive us to the beach.
I would then play with the children while he read a business tome. The thought of building sandcastles or instituting beach games like other dads, never occurred to him.
When I complained, he looked askance. ‘At least I’m here,’ he said. ‘I didn’t walk out like my father did.’
Constantly asking for his attention was so humiliating that, in the end, I gave up trying. But I was deeply miserable.
Kate and Harry on their wedding Day 1986
And then, perhaps, the inevitable happened. In 1995, two years after Polly was born and when I was 31, I fell in love with someone else.
I met the man — let’s call him Stephen — through my local church.
Stephen was a youth minister and I got to know him when I approached him to set up a mums and toddlers group. When Stephen started a small Bible class, I joined with a girlfriend.
Soon she dropped out, leaving me alone with Stephen. We ended up sharing our innermost thoughts and feelings, and Stephen listened to me in a way that Harry never did.
He copied out poems that he said made him think of me.
I was like a parched flower in the desert, soaking up the tiniest drop of attention. Soon I was completely and totally bowled over — like a teenager who has never been in love before.
The illicit nature of my love just made it more exciting. Stephen was slightly older than me, married but without children. He was vibrant, dynamic, and hugely passionate about life.
I’d known Stephen for three months and was aching with love, even though we’d not done so much as hold hands. I simply couldn’t bear it any longer.
‘I’ve fallen in love with you,’ I confessed. Stephen’s face lit up. ‘I love you too,’ he said.
I burst into tears. The relief was enormous. I loved this man with every ounce of my being. But I felt terrified, too. Could I really end my marriage and risk hurting my two little girls?
The next few days are a blur, but Harry was so oblivious he didn’t notice anything was wrong.
However, I felt consumed with guilt. Finally, one evening, when the children were in bed, I blurted out: ‘I’ve fallen in love with someone else.’
I thought Harry would crumble in shock and then demand I never see Stephen again.
I longed for him to fight for me. Instead, he put down his newspaper, looked me in the eye and asked calmly: ‘Have you slept with him?’
I was outraged. I took my marriage vows so seriously that I hadn’t even kissed Stephen.
‘Of course not,’ I said. Harry looked puzzled. ‘Well what’s the problem then?’ he asked.
I was devastated. Harry honestly didn’t care that I loved someone else. All that mattered to him was that I hadn’t actually had sex with another man.
'Constantly asking for my husbands attention was so humiliating,' says Kate Benson 'that, in the end, I gave up trying. But I was deeply miserable'
Now I can see that he was so distant, and so emotionally scarred from his childhood, that he simply didn’t know how to react. But I was convinced I didn’t matter to him.
That impression was hammered home a few days later when our closest friends came around for supper.
The wine was flowing and, as we passed around the chocolates, the conversation turned to relationships.
‘So why do you love Kate?’ my friend asked. Harry thought for a second. ‘I love the way she understands the chemistry of cooking,’ he said.
Looking at my friends’ shocked faces, I honestly didn’t know how long I could bear to stay married.
My marriage was so loveless it had become nothing more than a job. So that’s why, a day or two later, I sat down and wrote my letter of resignation to Harry.
I didn’t know how else to express myself. I wanted him to know all that I did for him and how unhappy I was.
I told him that I was putting him on notice. He had six months to show how much he loved me. I slipped the letter onto his pillow and waited.
Harry came in that night and, as usual, barely nodded hello before disappearing into the bedroom to get changed.
I held my breath and steeled myself for his reaction. Would he accept my resignation? Would he even care? The minutes seemed like hours. And then he walked into the room.
I was speechless. He was crying. He went down on one knee and took my hand.
Tears were glistening in his eyes. He dropped onto his knees in front of me — just as he’d done when he proposed. ‘Darling, I’m so, so sorry,’ he said. ‘I love you so much and I had no idea you were so unhappy. Please give me another chance.’
I was totally blindsided. I had never seen him so emotional before. We hugged and kissed and that evening we talked like we’d never done before. It was a turning point.
We realised we’d come within a whisker of destroying our marriage.
Harry now says that when he read my letter of resignation, he fell in love with me all over again.
It was the first time he realised just how much he loved me — and how much he wanted to make our marriage work.
Kate and Harry Benson adored their lifestyle in Hong Kong ¿ the wonderful food and the buzz of living in one of the most energetic cities in the world
If I’m honest, it took me a long while to forgive him and to stop feeling angry. Why hadn’t he been able to listen to me before? Why had it taken a letter of resignation to open his eyes?
Harry agreed to come with me to a counselling course where we both learnt to be more understanding and patient with each other.
Harry learnt to listen to me and to open up about his feelings.
I learnt to understand that, because it was so deeply ingrained in him to keep his emotions in check — first at boarding school and then in the Navy, he’s never going to be a guy easily in touch with his feelings.
But a few months after I wrote that letter I gave Harry a wedding ring. He hadn’t wanted one before. It sealed our commitment.
I won’t claim it’s all been plain sailing, and my heart was breaking when I explained to Stephen that I could never see him again. But we owe our now happy 26-year marriage to that letter, which Harry still treasures.
We now have six children. As well as Rosie, 21, and Polly, 19, there’s Grace, 15, Cicely, 13, Charlie, 11, and Johnnie, nine.
We moved back to England in 1997 and have established a wonderful life in Somerset.
I love my work as a cordon bleu cookery teacher and Harry, now 51, is frantically busy.
After taking a degree in psychology, he runs a very successful local relationship project, Bristol Community Family Trust, teaching practical relationship skills to thousands of couples.
It’s all because of the help he received to save our marriage.
He has also written a book about his Falklands experience — Scram — which came out in March.
Harry and I are chalk and cheese, but our love is unbreakable. I am so pleased that my job as Harry’s wife is for life — and I look back and shudder when I think how close I came to giving it all up.
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