Sarah Wagland, 50, will never forgive the woman who took away the man she loved
WORDS: CANDICE FERNANDEZ, FRANCES LEATE PHOTOS: TRUE LIFE STORIES, TRUE LIFE STORIES/AVON AND SOMERSET POLICE
Sat up in bed, I watched my husband admiring himself in the mirror.
‘I’m like that bloke from the film,’ Paul, then 42, smirked.
We’d just watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and I snorted with laughter when I realised he meant Brad Pitt.
‘You’re absurd!’ I chuckled. But that was what I loved about Paul, he had a brilliant sense of humour and always made me laugh.
It was 2012 and we’d been together since teenagers after growing up on the same street. Now we had three kids, Jess, then 20, James, 17, and Katie, 14, and we were grandparents to Jess’ two kids, Daisy, two and Charlie, who was just a few months old.
Paul was the fun parent and grandad – always dancing and singing to his beloved Elvis, belting out The Wonder of You at any opportunity. Only, a year later, in 2013, Paul’s younger brother passed away suddenly, and the fun-loving man we all knew started to disappear. Grief just consumed him and he pushed me away.
For years, we struggled on and time just seemed to pass so quickly, especially when Jess had our third grandchild, Mila, in April 2021. But that Christmas, I had to face the truth – Paul and I just weren’t happy any more and we agreed to separate.
It was hard for both of us, but in January 2022, Paul moved into his mum’s and I hoped a bit of time and space would help us heal.
Then, that Valentine’s Day, a friend sent me a screen shot of a Facebook post that Paul was tagged in.
A woman I didn’t recognise, Sonja, had checked into a restaurant with him.
‘Out for dinner with my hubby,’ the caption read.
MOVING ON
What was he playing at? He was my husband and we’d only split up five weeks ago. The kids told me their dad had felt lonely so had joined Facebook Dating, where he’d got chatting to Sonja.
Valentine’s Day was one of their first dates and calling him ‘hubby’ was just a joke. It was a shock that Paul had moved on so quickly but if he was happy then I had to be too. As the weeks went on, I found out he was mostly living at Sonja’s flat, but none of our kids had met her.
In April 2022, Paul helped Jess put up a Wendy house for Mila’s first birthday.
‘He was on the phone to Sonja the whole time, reporting what he was doing,’ she told me
