carine hartman 2021

By Carine Hartman

Chief sub-editor


Forgive – there is time to heal

My Diva knows the story: how, while I went through maybe a #wasband, I discovered Doubting Thomas’ writings.


The only Diva I know – and I’m not talking Daughter and I; we’re true Divas – is hurting, I realised tonight.

How I didn’t know this I can’t tell you. We share the same scar on our right hands; a perfect beauty spot in exactly the same place.

It should make us blood sisters and in a way we are connected by the hip – but life happens and she lived the high life while I scaled down to a low life.

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But how she flew… A man of means with continental charm chased her Mills & Boone’s way down to a perfect wedding on a Namib dune and opened the world for her.

She truly lived the fairy-tale, social media tells me: ski trips in the Alps; became a true blood New Yorker; explored France, Bali; and is fluent in the Scandinavian tongue.

But tonight I realised the husband is now the #wasband – for, I think, a year and a tear or two already.

Not that she is bitter at all. Yes, she mentions abandonment in passing while she searches for … whatever.

And I see a little knife twisting when she posts a picture of Donald Trump with the wife he slept with next to the wife he’s cheated on, next to a mistress, next to a…

And I want to tell her she should’ve just forgiven him. Because you can start over. You can build trust again.

How many times did I pack Beloved’s bags and leave them out of the front door. Every single time I got the promises – all moot.

How many times did I sue for divorce? Well, twice that it actually cost me money. But #husband and I was never #wasband and I.

We stayed together until the day he died on our 32nd wedding anniversary. Because I forgave, irrespective of what others thought.

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My Diva knows the story: how, while I went through maybe a #wasband, I discovered Doubting Thomas’ writings.

And how I, the night I had had enough, looked at my stupid printout of his wisdom behind my loo door: If two people in this single house say mountain move, it will move.

I worked hard to get over my ego that in Thomas’ words is the lion that will eat you up – but that, my Diva, is why you can have happiness for the next 20 years.

I’m just heartbroken that you signed some decree – because I know the love there…

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