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Photo by Paul Lewis
Jemma Thomas comments on her soon to be ex husbands' (Gareth Thomas) public announcement concerning his sexuality (he is gay),
'He released me and in doing so he released himself. Gareth could have waited for years to tell me, wasted my life, and where would that have left me? I was only 30 when he told me, still young enough to meet someone else and have children.'
Today, Jemma lives in Spain where she works with her mother Judi, 61, for a furniture company. She moved there 18 months ago for a fresh start. She wanted to be where no one knows she was the wife of the sporting legend and to escape the scrutiny which accompanied the break-up of her marriage.
'It was hard for me staying in Bridgend. Everywhere held a happy memory of my time with Gareth, all my friends were the friends we'd spent our weekends with as a couple,' says Jemma, whose divorce from Gareth will be finalised in the New Year. 'I needed to move on. We both did.'
Jemma and Gareth grew up in neighbouring villages near Bridgend, and were friends long before they became lovers. Before he turned professional, Gareth was Jemma's postman.
'All the girls used to go and watch the local rugby team to check out the talent and have a look at the boys' legs,' she says. 'I was never very interested in rugby, I was only interested in Gareth. I was besotted with him.
'He was great fun, laid back, happy-go-lucky, and we had such a laugh together. Rugby was his passion. I always watched him play, but it was a running joke between us that, even after 15 years together, I still had no idea where the try line was.'
In 2005 Gareth Thomas led Wales to its first Grand Slam victory since 1978
Until their marriage in 2001, their courtship was 'on-off '. Gareth has admitted this was as much to do with his confusion over his sexuality as with his total commitment to rugby.
He had his first gay encounter at 18, an experience which he says left him feeling ashamed, so much so that he pushed his feelings into a remote corner, where they sat like a knot in his stomach 'waiting to leak out'.
'Before our marriage I had no idea, no suspicion at all, not then anyway. That would come later,' says Jemma. 'He was just like all the other lads and dated a friend of mine before we got together at a friend's 18th birthday party.
'He was incredibly loving, caring, romantic, passionate and emotional. He was always buying me flowers and presents, telling me how much he adored me. I felt so confident in his love for me, I trusted him 100 per cent.
'I remember, just before Christmas in 2000, we were lying in bed together in our cottage and he jumped out of bed, switched on the light and then knelt down and said: "Shall we get married?" I replied: "Why not?" I had not a second's hesitation. He was all I wanted.
'And the saddest thing is we really did have the perfect marriage - apart from this grey corner which was secretly eating away at him. We never argued about anything, we just spent the whole time laughing and having fun. We had a great circle of friends.
'We were both desperate to start a family. Gareth adored children and was great with all our friends' kids. He would have made a brilliant father,' she says.
Jemma suffered her first miscarriage a year into their marriage. Gareth was with her, holding her hand when a hospital scan revealed the baby she was carrying had died in the womb ten weeks into her pregnancy.
'We were both in tears. Gareth was absolutely heartbroken, but all he cared about was making sure I was all right. He couldn't have been more loving and supportive,' says Jemma.
'We were both keen to try again as quickly as possible. When it's your first, you just accept it as one of those things, so in many ways the second miscarriage at nine weeks was devastating. It was an awful time for both of us.'
After the second miscarriage, in the summer of 2003, Gareth stayed home from the Wales tour of Australia and New Zealand to comfort Jemma, and she says his support meant everything to her. He took her on holiday to Cyprus to recover, and without his love during this time, Jemma says she would have been utterly destroyed.
Jemma was behind Gareth's move from Wales to the French Club Toulouse in 2004, giving up her job as a payroll manager with a furniture company to move with him to France. Indeed, it heralded a stunning period of triumph in Gareth's rugby career. In 2005, he not only led Wales to their Grand Slam victory, he won the Heineken Cup with Toulouse and was voted BBC Wales Sports Personality Of The Year.
The following year, however, their world fell apart. In early 2006, Gareth stood accused of leading a player revolt following the sudden departure of the Wales national coach, Mike Ruddock.
Then Gareth - already nursing a rugby injury - collapsed with a ruptured artery and suffered a ministoke, following a TV debate in which he defended his team against charges of 'player power'. Not long after this, Jemma suffered her third miscarriage.
'It was a very fraught time. I was very worried about Gareth's health after his mini-stroke and anxious about my pregnancy. I had a chest infection and wasn't feeling great,' says Jemma.
Gareth and Jemma Thomas at home in happier days
'I was so worried about the baby, we went to hospital for a scan, and it destroyed us when we were told I had miscarried either that morning or the night before. How can you ever feel normal again after losing your third baby?
'It was the worst time of our lives, everything seemed to be spiralling out of control and we seemed to be trapped on an emotional rollercoaster. Gareth has always been a very private person, and he started spending hours alone, walking along the beach, reflecting on things he would not talk to me about.
'My intuition told me something was wrong, but whenever I asked Gareth he'd say "nothing's wrong" and change the subject.
'He'd tell me he was going somewhere, while he was on tour, and then I'd find out that he'd been somewhere else. I started to ask him where he'd been, where he was going, if there was someone else. Then I'd feel guilty and angry with myself for even doubting him. I felt certain Gareth would never have cheated on me with a woman, so I started to wonder if he might be gay, because I couldn't think of anything else. I'd started to hear gossip about his sexuality, but thought it was just some locker room banter and pushed it to the back of my mind.
'There wasn't a night when he didn't come home, when he wasn't on tour, and our love life was normal. Me and the other rugby wives would joke about how much we were doing it, while the boys were training, and we were no different from anyone else.
'He loved me so much he had to tell me the truth'
'Then, he phoned me one day and said: "I need to talk to you." That night he admitted it, saying: "You have to know the truth. I am gay."
'It was the worst day of my life. It almost felt as if someone I loved had suddenly died, but he was still standing there in front of me. Alive but lost to me. I didn't feel anger - if anything, I felt sorry for him.
'If it had been another woman, I think I would have thrown myself off a cliff, because it would have destroyed every ounce of my selfesteem. But the fact he'd been with men, strangely almost didn't feel like cheating to me.
'This was who he was, something I could never have changed, something that was nothing to do with his feelings for me as a woman.
'I knew that whatever he had done had not been done with malice towards me and I could see how much he was suffering and how sorry he was for hurting me. Gareth was still the same Gareth I'd fallen in love with. He was just as loving and caring as he was before. He didn't change at all, so for a month nothing happened and both of us thought that somehow we could stay together because we depended so much on each other.'
But Jemma was in turmoil. After a month of drifting along, as if nothing had changed in their marriage, she returned from France to Wales.
'I had to tell my parents because I just didn't know what to do. I stayed up with my dad Trevor talking until 3am and I told him everything,' says Jemma.
'I remember my father saying: "Poor lad, what must he have been going through all these years." There was no anger or aggression, just enormous sympathy for both of us.
'I knew I still loved Gareth, but that our marriage could never survive this, no matter how much we both wanted it to.
Gareth and Jemma Thomas had three miscarriages during their marriage
'I had always trusted Gareth 100 per cent and knew that I would never be able to trust him again. Every time he went out, I'd be thinking "Where is he going?" or "Who is he seeing?" and it would destroy our love for each other. So I phoned Gareth to tell him I wasn't coming back to France.
'He was sitting on our bed in France in tears, and I was sitting in Wales in tears, but it was the right thing to do. I knew I couldn't stay with Gareth knowing that I had 90 per cent of him, but not all.' In 2007, Gareth retired from international rugby, left Toulouse and returned to Wales to play for the Cardiff Blues, with whom he hopes to play out what remains of his career.
For three years his family, friends and team-mates have known the truth, which has made not a jot of difference to their feelings or respect for him.
'Gareth and I were still the best of friends and in some ways it was as if nothing had changed. He'd call me every day, come round to see me, want to spend time with me and buy me presents,' says Jemma.
'We were still together, but living parallel lives. It was very hard for us to let go of each other, and we would often end up in tears, because the love between us was still there.
'I was still helping him with his career, advising him on looking at new avenues for when his rugby career ended. 'We remained incredibly close, but one day I realised that this situation wasn't helping either of us. I think he was still blaming himself for hurting me and didn't want to just let me go, but it had to happen if either of us was to move on. My parents have had a house in Spain for many years, and one day my mum said: "Why don't you move out here for a while?"
'It was the best thing I could have done for both myself and Gareth. He was upset when I told him, and for a while we hardly had any contact, but I'm a very strong person mentally and this is the way it has to be.
'With Gareth coming out publicly and our divorce being finalised in the New Year, I feel a chapter is closing and, although I feel sad and wish it could be different, it's for the best.
'This is who Gareth is and it is something which cannot be changed, but it has been so hard coming to terms with that. It would be easy for me to think that if I hadn't married Gareth, I might have met and married someone else, but I don't regret a single day I spent as his wife.
'If we'd had children, I think I would have wanted to stay married to him for their sake and that wouldn't have been good for either of us, so while I grieve for the babies we lost, perhaps these things happen for a reason.
'He will always love me, but he cannot turn himself into a heterosexual. If he could, I would still be married to him. We will always be the best of friends and I couldn't feel prouder of him than I do now.'
Excerpted from an article by Helen Weathers
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1237397/When-Gareth-told-gay-man-I-loved-died.html#ixzz0azPvWDMX
Today, Jemma lives in Spain where she works with her mother Judi, 61, for a furniture company. She moved there 18 months ago for a fresh start. She wanted to be where no one knows she was the wife of the sporting legend and to escape the scrutiny which accompanied the break-up of her marriage.
'It was hard for me staying in Bridgend. Everywhere held a happy memory of my time with Gareth, all my friends were the friends we'd spent our weekends with as a couple,' says Jemma, whose divorce from Gareth will be finalised in the New Year. 'I needed to move on. We both did.'
Jemma and Gareth grew up in neighbouring villages near Bridgend, and were friends long before they became lovers. Before he turned professional, Gareth was Jemma's postman.
'All the girls used to go and watch the local rugby team to check out the talent and have a look at the boys' legs,' she says. 'I was never very interested in rugby, I was only interested in Gareth. I was besotted with him.
'He was great fun, laid back, happy-go-lucky, and we had such a laugh together. Rugby was his passion. I always watched him play, but it was a running joke between us that, even after 15 years together, I still had no idea where the try line was.'
In 2005 Gareth Thomas led Wales to its first Grand Slam victory since 1978
Until their marriage in 2001, their courtship was 'on-off '. Gareth has admitted this was as much to do with his confusion over his sexuality as with his total commitment to rugby.
He had his first gay encounter at 18, an experience which he says left him feeling ashamed, so much so that he pushed his feelings into a remote corner, where they sat like a knot in his stomach 'waiting to leak out'.
'Before our marriage I had no idea, no suspicion at all, not then anyway. That would come later,' says Jemma. 'He was just like all the other lads and dated a friend of mine before we got together at a friend's 18th birthday party.
'He was incredibly loving, caring, romantic, passionate and emotional. He was always buying me flowers and presents, telling me how much he adored me. I felt so confident in his love for me, I trusted him 100 per cent.
'I remember, just before Christmas in 2000, we were lying in bed together in our cottage and he jumped out of bed, switched on the light and then knelt down and said: "Shall we get married?" I replied: "Why not?" I had not a second's hesitation. He was all I wanted.
'And the saddest thing is we really did have the perfect marriage - apart from this grey corner which was secretly eating away at him. We never argued about anything, we just spent the whole time laughing and having fun. We had a great circle of friends.
'We were both desperate to start a family. Gareth adored children and was great with all our friends' kids. He would have made a brilliant father,' she says.
Jemma suffered her first miscarriage a year into their marriage. Gareth was with her, holding her hand when a hospital scan revealed the baby she was carrying had died in the womb ten weeks into her pregnancy.
'We were both in tears. Gareth was absolutely heartbroken, but all he cared about was making sure I was all right. He couldn't have been more loving and supportive,' says Jemma.
'We were both keen to try again as quickly as possible. When it's your first, you just accept it as one of those things, so in many ways the second miscarriage at nine weeks was devastating. It was an awful time for both of us.'
After the second miscarriage, in the summer of 2003, Gareth stayed home from the Wales tour of Australia and New Zealand to comfort Jemma, and she says his support meant everything to her. He took her on holiday to Cyprus to recover, and without his love during this time, Jemma says she would have been utterly destroyed.
Jemma was behind Gareth's move from Wales to the French Club Toulouse in 2004, giving up her job as a payroll manager with a furniture company to move with him to France. Indeed, it heralded a stunning period of triumph in Gareth's rugby career. In 2005, he not only led Wales to their Grand Slam victory, he won the Heineken Cup with Toulouse and was voted BBC Wales Sports Personality Of The Year.
The following year, however, their world fell apart. In early 2006, Gareth stood accused of leading a player revolt following the sudden departure of the Wales national coach, Mike Ruddock.
Then Gareth - already nursing a rugby injury - collapsed with a ruptured artery and suffered a ministoke, following a TV debate in which he defended his team against charges of 'player power'. Not long after this, Jemma suffered her third miscarriage.
'It was a very fraught time. I was very worried about Gareth's health after his mini-stroke and anxious about my pregnancy. I had a chest infection and wasn't feeling great,' says Jemma.
Gareth and Jemma Thomas at home in happier days
'I was so worried about the baby, we went to hospital for a scan, and it destroyed us when we were told I had miscarried either that morning or the night before. How can you ever feel normal again after losing your third baby?
'It was the worst time of our lives, everything seemed to be spiralling out of control and we seemed to be trapped on an emotional rollercoaster. Gareth has always been a very private person, and he started spending hours alone, walking along the beach, reflecting on things he would not talk to me about.
'My intuition told me something was wrong, but whenever I asked Gareth he'd say "nothing's wrong" and change the subject.
'He'd tell me he was going somewhere, while he was on tour, and then I'd find out that he'd been somewhere else. I started to ask him where he'd been, where he was going, if there was someone else. Then I'd feel guilty and angry with myself for even doubting him. I felt certain Gareth would never have cheated on me with a woman, so I started to wonder if he might be gay, because I couldn't think of anything else. I'd started to hear gossip about his sexuality, but thought it was just some locker room banter and pushed it to the back of my mind.
'There wasn't a night when he didn't come home, when he wasn't on tour, and our love life was normal. Me and the other rugby wives would joke about how much we were doing it, while the boys were training, and we were no different from anyone else.
'He loved me so much he had to tell me the truth'
'Then, he phoned me one day and said: "I need to talk to you." That night he admitted it, saying: "You have to know the truth. I am gay."
'It was the worst day of my life. It almost felt as if someone I loved had suddenly died, but he was still standing there in front of me. Alive but lost to me. I didn't feel anger - if anything, I felt sorry for him.
'If it had been another woman, I think I would have thrown myself off a cliff, because it would have destroyed every ounce of my selfesteem. But the fact he'd been with men, strangely almost didn't feel like cheating to me.
'This was who he was, something I could never have changed, something that was nothing to do with his feelings for me as a woman.
'I knew that whatever he had done had not been done with malice towards me and I could see how much he was suffering and how sorry he was for hurting me. Gareth was still the same Gareth I'd fallen in love with. He was just as loving and caring as he was before. He didn't change at all, so for a month nothing happened and both of us thought that somehow we could stay together because we depended so much on each other.'
But Jemma was in turmoil. After a month of drifting along, as if nothing had changed in their marriage, she returned from France to Wales.
'I had to tell my parents because I just didn't know what to do. I stayed up with my dad Trevor talking until 3am and I told him everything,' says Jemma.
'I remember my father saying: "Poor lad, what must he have been going through all these years." There was no anger or aggression, just enormous sympathy for both of us.
'I knew I still loved Gareth, but that our marriage could never survive this, no matter how much we both wanted it to.
Gareth and Jemma Thomas had three miscarriages during their marriage
'I had always trusted Gareth 100 per cent and knew that I would never be able to trust him again. Every time he went out, I'd be thinking "Where is he going?" or "Who is he seeing?" and it would destroy our love for each other. So I phoned Gareth to tell him I wasn't coming back to France.
'He was sitting on our bed in France in tears, and I was sitting in Wales in tears, but it was the right thing to do. I knew I couldn't stay with Gareth knowing that I had 90 per cent of him, but not all.' In 2007, Gareth retired from international rugby, left Toulouse and returned to Wales to play for the Cardiff Blues, with whom he hopes to play out what remains of his career.
For three years his family, friends and team-mates have known the truth, which has made not a jot of difference to their feelings or respect for him.
'Gareth and I were still the best of friends and in some ways it was as if nothing had changed. He'd call me every day, come round to see me, want to spend time with me and buy me presents,' says Jemma.
'We were still together, but living parallel lives. It was very hard for us to let go of each other, and we would often end up in tears, because the love between us was still there.
'I was still helping him with his career, advising him on looking at new avenues for when his rugby career ended. 'We remained incredibly close, but one day I realised that this situation wasn't helping either of us. I think he was still blaming himself for hurting me and didn't want to just let me go, but it had to happen if either of us was to move on. My parents have had a house in Spain for many years, and one day my mum said: "Why don't you move out here for a while?"
'It was the best thing I could have done for both myself and Gareth. He was upset when I told him, and for a while we hardly had any contact, but I'm a very strong person mentally and this is the way it has to be.
'With Gareth coming out publicly and our divorce being finalised in the New Year, I feel a chapter is closing and, although I feel sad and wish it could be different, it's for the best.
'This is who Gareth is and it is something which cannot be changed, but it has been so hard coming to terms with that. It would be easy for me to think that if I hadn't married Gareth, I might have met and married someone else, but I don't regret a single day I spent as his wife.
'If we'd had children, I think I would have wanted to stay married to him for their sake and that wouldn't have been good for either of us, so while I grieve for the babies we lost, perhaps these things happen for a reason.
'He will always love me, but he cannot turn himself into a heterosexual. If he could, I would still be married to him. We will always be the best of friends and I couldn't feel prouder of him than I do now.'
Excerpted from an article by Helen Weathers
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1237397/When-Gareth-told-gay-man-I-loved-died.html#ixzz0azPvWDMX
