There were points in the last few months where I thought I was losing my mind. Sometimes, I felt like I was living on a film set in which everyone around me was mad and they were trying their hardest to convince me that in fact, it was me that was losing my mind. They came close on more than one occasion.

I used to say that there the difference between gut instinct and fear is that fear was something you could name and gut instinct was something that you simply could not put your finger on - you just know something is not right.

That feeling never really leaves until you realise that you were right to believe it. It is at this point that you see that you are not mad, naive, stupid and misguided perhaps, - but definitely not mad. Life is like a jigsaw puzzle; pretty tricky. You never really know where the pieces fit but when you get near to completing, it becomes pretty obvious. The Internet is the modern day jigsaw puzzle, allowing you to fill in the missing bits and gain a clearer picture. This may be a pretty ugly one - but it is one in which you realise that perhaps you were not mad after all.

There are those around me that figured out the puzzle some time ago but in my naivety and faith - I believed what I was told. What a silly, silly woman I was. The more the lies are told the clearer the picture becomes.

There are many things I should not say, many things I should not do, but my life is an open book. I have no lies to tell, I have nothing that I must keep to myself (only more personal aspects that few will know) and because of this I have no need for dishonesty in an attempt to cover my own trail. It is when that trail goes further back that the picture starts to be complete.

And this is the point you wonder if someone is capable of weaving such a web of deceit, how long were they capable of it? Years ago, before I was married - 'It" lied to me. He was seeing someone else. It was a bare faced lie and he got caught. No shame, just embarrassment. Thankfully, though his lies continued he had friends with a higher moral ground - so I never went mad, I never thought I lost my mind because I already knew the truth.

My mother once told me that if a man hits you once, he will do it again. I used to joke to 'It' that if he had the capacity for lies, he always would do. Apparently, I was talking rubbish and because I have faith in people, because I am not the jealous type and because I was very much in love with him - I believed him.

So I was right - someone who has this capacity, probably always will. When the picture becomes clearer and the lies more obvious, it leaves you wondering how many lies went on between. The sobering truth is that I will never know. The only person that can answer that, is the one so capable of lying. Which in my mind leaves me with another sobering truth, that the man I thought I knew is not the one that he is and my entire marriage - all 22 years - was based on my assumptions and was therefore - a farce.

In the midst of yet another 'Don't let this stuff up your childhood talk' I told one of the children that they must never confuse Daddy's inability to express himself with any lack of love for them, since he loved them very much.

"What's the difference" they said

"Well, he does love you very much but he struggles with showing it" I replied

"So how do you know he does"

"I just do" I said

It was an inadequate answer. How do you answer that? I have hung so many excuses on depression, they have grown up being told that when Daddy was grumpy it was just the depression, when Daddy was at work at weekends, it was stress: when Daddy didn't come on holiday with us - work and more stress. It really doesn't matter what you call it because in the end Daddy is just Daddy.

The only truth is that life so far has been one huge lie.