HOW COULD HE DO THIS TO HIS WIFE & DAUGHTER?
Don's wife is the forgotten victim as his sex scandal continues to explode
Of all Don Burke's female victims, the woman who has been most betrayed by his actions is no doubt his gravely ill wife Marea.
Notoriously private, she's said to be devastated by the revelations – and Don airing the couple's dirty laundry by admitting to Tracy Grimshaw on A Current Affair that he's had numerous affairs during their 51-year marriage.
Despite Tracy revealing Marea told her before the interview that she knew Don would admit to cheating on her and that “they've sorted it out”, a source close to the couple told Woman's Day that Marea is “reeling in horror” at the overwhelming number of women who've come forward to tell of their shocking experiences with her husband.
“Marea can't fathom the idea that this went on under her nose, especially as she ran the company, CTC Productions, that produced Burke's Backyard,” the source says. “It's just too much for her to accept – not just for her but their children [son Sean and daughter Chris, who was executive producer on Burke's Backyard and still works for CTC].
“So she is sticking by Don as usual. She has to. She is seriously ill and relies on Don as her carer. He has been her life for so long, she couldn't survive without him.”
In the interview with ACA last week, Don, 70, said that when his wife became ill 17 years ago, he stopped seeing other women behind her back.
“Once she moved to a state of ill-health, I thought what stupid priorities I had in life,” he said. “I have done a lot of things I am ashamed of – like when I let the family d down. B But since i M Marea became ill, none of this has happened. But that doesn't change the fact that things happened back then. Now I am a different person.”
Marea gave her first-ever interview in 2015 when she joined Don on ACA to discuss s her ill-health, explaining that in 2000, at the height of Burke's Backyard's success, she started having double vision and was diagnosed with arteriovenous malformation (AVM) – a tangle of abnormal blood vessels on her brain.
She underwent a nine-hour surgery followed by years of recovery, only to be diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013 and undergoing a mastectomy.
“My world just fell apart in that moment,” Don recalled. “What we've been through is the worst of times but in a way it's also been the best of times... For us, it really did bring us a lot closer together and made us realise, at least from my side, how important your time is together.”
Little did Marea know then just how much tougher still that time together would get.