I moved dying ex in with my new hubby
THEY pose together, arms affectionately around each other – three people in an amazing love triangle with a remarkable difference.
One based on loyalty, friendship, unbreakable wedding vows and astonishing selfless devotion.
Their moving story began when Sue Gardner left her husband John Featherstone for another man after their once blissful marriage had broken down.
The underlying bond between them remained so strong John even helped bring his wife and her new love Kevin McPhail together.
He paid Kevin’s fare to move from England to Ireland.
And after Sue moved Kevin in and John left home the three regularly kept in touch and had dinner together.
Even on the day Sue and Kevin married, John was there to share his ex-wife’s new-found happiness.
So, when Sue found out her 60-yearold ex-husband had terminal cancer earlier this month, there was no doubting what she would do.
She remembered the promise she made to her first big love – that she would stand by him in sickness and in health – and with 57-year-old Kevin’s blessing took her dying ex-husband into their home to care for him.
“I still love him. I always have done. It’s just that love isn’t husband and wife any more. But I’ve never stopped loving John,” says Sue, 49.
“Kevin is 100 per cent supportive. He wants to do whatever he can to help too.
“All the family said at first that it was strange – how could my ex-husband move in with us?
SMILE
“But as time has gone on, they’ve seen how good a friendship we have. I’ve known John 30 years. When I said to him till death us do part, I meant it.”
She tells how she met John in 1990 on his birthday in their home town of Birkenhead, Merseyside.
“He was a taxi driver and I was his fare. We got chatting and I was attracted to his smile. We arranged to meet up and from then on we saw each other every day.” The two found themselves head over heels and moved in together three months later.
After nine years together, they married and moved to Northern Ireland. “I was the one who proposed,” she says.
“I wanted to be married and to feel secure before we went to live in Belfast. John told me he needed to think about it. “That night he rang me and said yes.”
They arranged a hasty town hall ceremony – “we got the licence on Monday, I bought the dress on Tuesday, then we got married on Thursday and were on the boat to Ireland that night.”
Sue and John stayed with family until they were able to move into a bungalow together. At first their marriage was “blissful”, says Sue. But after 10 years it began breaking down.
“Things had started to fizzle out. We were sleeping in separate rooms,” says Sue. “I wanted to move back to England and John didn’t. He was suffering from insomnia and I was bored and lonely.”
She met second husband Kevin, from Brighton, on Facebook in 2010 when he posted a comment on a mutual friend’s profile. “When I saw his picture, I knew he was the man I wanted to spend my life with.” They exchanged hundreds of direct messages.
A month later Sue confessed to John, and Kevin left his wife.
Sue says: “I told John I had met someone, that his name was Kevin and I wanted him to move in with me.
“He just said OK. He wasn’t upset as we’d really been over for two years anyway. He said he had expected it.
“I then told him there was one issue, neither of us had a bank card to pay for
I still love John. I always have. When I said to him till death us do part I meant it
SUE GARDNER ON KEEPING HER WEDDING VOWS TO HER EX-HUSBAND
Kevin’s flight to Belfast. John then said we could use his. I tried to pay him back but he wouldn’t have it. He said he knew Kevin made me happy and that’s what he wanted. And that he would move out.”
Sue met Kevin at Belfast Airport. “He stepped off the plane and that was the first time we had met,” she says. “We went on dates for a while and then he moved in with me.”
STRANGE
The couple kept in touch with John after he moved out. Sue divorced him in 2012, and exchanged vows with Kevin a year later after a Christmas Day proposal.
“I went downstairs that morning and he was at the bottom dressed as Santa,” says Sue.
Over the nine years since their wedding, Kevin has accepted John as a close friend. He says: “Some couples break up and never speak, but it’s not the way with John and Sue. Ever since we got together I’ve been friends with him.
“People might say it’s strange, but I only have love for John.”
He and Sue were both devastated when John was told he had lung cancer in November. “He rang me and was crying – only the second time I’d heard him crying in 30 years,” says Sue.
“I told him, ‘I’m coming to see you in Belfast and I’m not leaving unless I’m bringing you back with me’.
John moved into Sue and Kevin’s spare bedroom on December 14. His cancer has spread to his pancreas and is now terminal.
He starts chemotherapy in January. Kevin says of John moving in: “This is only the right thing to do… I want to help my wife out and John.”
Sue cooks John’s meals and vows to do all she can to care for him.
“Between Kev and I we cook all his food and I go to hospital appointments with him,” she says. “We are there for emotional support.”
At Christmas she and Kevin cooked dinner and John made the gravy. “We had a lovely Christmas,” she says, wiping away a tear.
“It was very quiet but we wanted to spend some quality time together. We don’t know how long he has left.”
We don’t know how long John has left. But both Kevin and I are there for him
SUE ON CARING FOR JOHN IN THE HOME SHE SHARES WITH SECOND HUSBAND