Anthea Turner has opened up about how she wrote a letter to her then-husband Grant Bovey to explain her behavioural changes due to the menopause, while he was having an affair with a 24-year-old interior designer.
The former Blue Peter presenter, 62, admitted that due to her busy work commitments, she found it hard to converse with her husband of 12 years so she thought about penning her feelings and experiences in the hope of him gaining more of an understanding.
Anthea revealed that she "hadn't a clue what was going on" when she experienced some severe symptoms during the menopause, which she described as feeling like "somebody's invaded your body".
"It was only 10 years ago when I was going through it. I hadn't a clue what was going on," she said on the Postcards From Midlife podcast.
"We need to talk about it - it's a horrible time. You just all of a sudden don't feel yourself. And I know that sounds such a pathetic thing to say, 'Oh, I don't feel myself,' but you really don't. You feel like somebody's invaded your body.
"All your markers are all out by a few degrees. I got spots on my back and I was sweating. I felt my confidence was going. I was getting brain fog, I was questioning myself."
Anthea said she was a "little bit fuzzy of where perimenopause, menopause and divorce sort of end and finish" but hailed the hormone replacement therapy (HRT) as "golden" after she was prescribed the treatment.
The couple eventually divorced in 2015, after a brief reconciliation in 2013, following the revelation of Bovey's affair with interior designer Zoe de Mallet Morgan three years earlier.
"You want to turn to the person who's the most important in your life, your husband, and I couldn't," she added.
"But, of course, what I didn't realise is at the time he was going through his own little menopause, and he'd obviously taken up with a, very exciting in his life, 24-year-old.
"So a sweaty, moaning wife was just like the last thing he wanted. And I wrote this little letter saying, 'you know, please understand that'.
"I then went reading up about it and found out a lot more, and I tried to explain. I thought I'll write it all down and I wrote it all down."
Do you have a story to sell? Get in touch with us at webcelebs@mirror.co.uk or call us direct at 0207 29 33033
