What a horrible year for you BarBar, it seems like only yesterday that you were nearly flipping the car rushing your screaming abdominally compromised wife to hospital in the freezing cold and waiting nervously to see what was wrong with her and now this.
My ex was a bit of a rogue.
The sort of rogue who forged my signature to take out credit cards in my name and run up huge direct debit debts without my knowledge.
The sort of rogue who was in bed with another guy when I came home unexpectedly after a disappointing evening of corporate team bonding at the bowling alley.
The sort of rogue who left my pet birds outside with the cage door open to be eaten by cats (only for a few to be rescued by the horrified neighbors).
The sort of rogue who when I found myself in a hospital ward full of dying people and possibly facing death myself, turned up everyday and brought real meals for me when the hospital was serving what looked like papier mâché balls and zombie fingers.
The sort of rogue who kept me going by just being there everyday when everyday was an indignity of tubes being threaded into my lungs, into my stomach, into my bowel and into my veins, running temperatures so high that five fans had to run all night.
The sort of rogue who much to my hilarity gathered all the left over fireworks from a display and spent the evening with me in an empty field running away from dangerous misfires, my first moment of unguarded fun in many months of imprisoning convalescence.
The sort of rogue who as a parting farewell ran off to Wales with ten grand of my money and traveled the world (according to the private investigator I hired) at my expense.
Into every life a tonne of sewage must fall, once in a while.
We don't tend to be told this when we are kids, some of us have to learn it the hard way but we all learn it in time.
If you really can't see your wife's point of view (even after standing on your head and looking at it at a squint) show the sort of patience you would hope someone would show you if you had made such accusations to someone who didn't actually deserve it.
If you can see at least some of what she is saying think to yourself that you made at least some of your spare bed and though you have lay on it at the moment one day you will lie in another bed (hopefully a more comfortable one but at least not a cardboard box or a bed of nails) and while you may have a degree of control over what happens next no-one and nothing in the universe is actually in the driving seat.
We are all passengers.
Attempting to grab the steering wheel is never a good idea so just try to keep your cool and while you might not be able to get on with your fellow travelers, try to keep polite and quiet and appreciate the view when the driver takes you somewhere nice.
It's those memories that will keep you sane when the driver inexplicably takes the car through the sewage system with the windows open and the soft top down.