How my husband’s 7 suicide attempts broke our marriage

The first time my husband walked out of our house intent on killing himself I thought, days later when we were reunited in hospital, that it would be the last.

Seven attempts later, he finally managed to take his own life. On that first occasion, after breakfast one morning, Alastair just went out and failed to return.

At the time, we were both working from home, sometimes on joint projects, sometimes not.

Lunchtime that day came and went. At 6pm, I called his sons (from his previous marriage) but they hadn’t heard from him.

Worried, the eldest went driving around London to see if he could spot his father’s car.

I started to wonder if he’d had a heart attack, whether he was lying ill on a street corner.

I switched to efficiency mode and took a tray where I placed three phones: the landline and my mobile for incoming calls and another landline to use for outgoing calls.

I took this tray with me around the flat, fearful of missing that phone call from my husband. When I called the police, they said they would log his disappearance but couldn’t take action until he’d been missing for 48 hours.

So I started to log all the calls I made – to whom I had spoken, at what time. This copy book was added to the telephone tray.

It was my way of coping. It was pointless being hysterical, I needed to keep calm and feel a sense of control.

That evening, his first wife came up from Kent to keep me company. She was as surprised as I was – Alastair had never done anything like this before.

I phoned him repeatedly; his phone went straight to voicemail. My voice messages went from pleasant to angry to desperate.

After 24 hours, I hadn’t slept and I started phoning around my friends – just to talk to keep myself sane.

I called the police again and they came over to take information, leaving with his hairbrush for DNA identification.

There are no words to describe the torment I felt at not knowing. At times like this, your mind is your worst enemy. After 48 hours, I decided to keep an appointment with a friend in an attempt to get a semblance of normality.

As I tried to sip my coffee, my mobile rang and a strange, small voice at the other end said: ‘Hello, it’s me’.

After three agonising days of silence, uncertainty and torture, I learned he had been admitted to Addenbrooke’s Hopsital in Cambridge.

Alastair had prepared his suicide with military precision: he had packed a plastic glass, 2 bottles of wine, a blanket and my father’s morphine tablets and driven off to Cambridge.

He turned off his mobile so he couldn’t be located and removed the SW1 parking permit and the disabled badge from the car which would link him to my parents.

This was no random act. I was shocked and hurt at the duplicity of my husband whom I thought I knew.

But the relief washed over me when I heard he was alive. I took the train to Cambridge and visited him – he was hooked up to countless machines, cleaning his kidneys, changing his blood, treating his hypothermia.

 In just three days, he – who had never been overweight – had become skeletal. There was nearly nothing of him left. Even his voice had changed as a result of the tubes that had been administered in his coma.

My first words to him were: ‘Do you want to live?’ to which he replied, ‘Yes, please’.

As I write this, I cry – hearing his little voice saying – so politely ‘yes, please’ – tears trickle down my cheeks.

By his bedside, I placed a happy picture of us together so that he could be reminded of the wonderful days we had known.

I hoped this would further renew his desire to live. Such was the extent of the damage he did to himself, Alastair stayed three weeks in Addenbrooke’s. But he was never referred to a psychiatrist.

At the time, such treatment was rarely deployed to patients after their first suicide – you have to have had two attempts at taking your life. Some people say suicide is a cry for help. But there’s no way that Alastair’s trip to Cambridge was to attract attention.

He really meant to kill himself but thankfully, a dog and his walker intervened, finding him unconscious in the woods.

I hoped that the fact he had nearly lost his life would have brought attention to the severity of his condition.

I suggested to him that he should see a doctor but he refused. At the time, I believed that he would not try to kill himself again.

Alastair and I met in the early 90s – through The French Chamber of Commerce. At the time, my role involved lots of events which I noticed he never came to.

One day I confronted him and, from there, a romance started which led to my first and only marriage and Alastair’s second.

That was on 21 May 1994. Six months after his first attempt at taking his life, he tried again.

This time I knew he had gone off to kill himself. I find the term ‘attempt suicide’ a funny one because I know from personal experience you want to disappear in earnest.

I tried twice when I was in my teens – the result of a domineering mother – but it’s not something I would have ever attempted again for not wanting to hurt my husband.

Just like the first time, there was no note and it was three days before I heard anything.

This time, I was at a friend’s house when the police rang me on my mobile to tell me they had found him. This time he went as far as Scotland. After admitting to it being his second attempt, he was placed in a psychiatric ward.

As before, he had prepared everything to the last detail – including staying overnight in a B&B which he paid in cash.

He had taken himself to Royal Troon Golf Club where he used to play golf with his father as a young boy.

And, while he did take an overdose with ample quantities of wine, he was not able to carry it through, walked back to his car, reassembled his phone and called for an ambulance.

He was escorted back to London by two nurses, where he was admitted to the psychiatric hospital in Vincent Square.

That time though, I could not find it in myself to forgive him nor could I find it in myself to touch him, let alone hug him.

Alastair received care from a wonderful psychiatrist, but he wasn’t given any anti-depressants, as they believed he had undiagnosed mild Asperger’s – not depression.

Alastair had also come up with the notion that he did not want to be a burden to me or his two sons from his previous marriage.

He witnessed his mother disintegrate into Alzheimer’s, my mother with Parkinson’s and ultimately my father with dementia – and he didn’t want to do that to us.

When he was in the psychiatric hospital, he was allowed out for short visits but I have to admit I was frightened of him. I thought I knew my husband but this secretive side of him has been revealed.

During that time, I only met him in public places. Though I didn’t disagree with the Asperger’s diagnosis, the authorities seem satisfied with his condition and eventually he was discharged.

At first, he kept up his visits to a psychotherapist but, eventually, he stopped those too. We managed to settle back in some kind of routine. Alastair was made redundant which was a huge financial blow to us.

But, we could cope. However, he was suffering from anxiety attacks so his GP prescribed beta-blockers, but no link was established with his former attempts to take his life.

So, life returned to its normal pace – except, occasionally, I would raise the subject of how his actions had hurt me and his sons. I would ask whether he understood that and he would say he did.

I so wanted to believe him and continued to hope he’d never do it, ever again. But, one day, he took himself off to one of his favourite childhood spots – the Isabella Plantation in Richmond Park.

I can no longer recall what happened on this occasion. It’s all a bit of a blur now. Perhaps my memory is sheltering me from the pain. I do remember, however, it was after this attempt that we started sleeping in different bedrooms.

Then there was a fourth attempt – this time he burnt his foot badly. He wouldn’t tell me how this happened but I slowly learnt that he had jumped on to a train track. From that day on, he had a limp.

I could no longer bear the torture of seeing him leave the flat and not knowing if he would ever come back.

Distrust had settled in. And, with the distrust, the respect I had for him had gone. It was one of the toughest things I’ve ever done, but I asked him to move out. I hoped that he would understand that actions have consequences.

In my own way, I was trying to save him. He found himself a flat in Balham and changed his surgery, but he wouldn’t tell me the details of his new doctor or surgery and I suspected he hadn’t told them of his desire to take his life.

We would meet regularly – at least once a week – but when you love someone, as I loved Alastair, you develop a sixth sense about them. One Friday afternoon, I called him but the phone went straight to voicemail.

I tried repeatedly but couldn’t get hold of him. Again, I tried the next morning and left yet another message. But, at this point, I also called his younger son and, together, we agreed to call the police.

Because he by now had a well-established history, they immediately went round to his flat. This time there was a note.

Ultimately, it took my husband seven attempts before he finally took his life. That was four years ago and it still hurts just as much to think about it now.

For a while after his death, I would stand in the kitchen doing anodyne tasks, like chopping onions, looking around, wondering where Alastair was. We would often cook together, so much so that a friend called us ‘The Cradocks’ after the early TV cookery couple.

It’s strange, because I was not so aware of his absence when he was still alive, but living in Balham. Somehow, there is something in my conscience that reminds me that I will never see him again.

Only recently I have started to think about dating. I have come out of a self-protection ‘retreat’; I have been shielding myself from getting hurt again.

In my heart-breaking experience, I know my husband became incredibly deceptive, something which I’m certain other families mourning the loss of lives through suicide will have encountered with their loved ones when they piece together those last days or weeks. For Alastair, I can only hope he now rests in peace.

Source: Metro.co.uk