‘Love tornado’: Mumsnet guru splits with C4 boss husband
JUstiNe ROBeRts, co-founder of Mumsnet, the website that has its finger on the pulse of middle-class parenting dilemmas, has revealed she left her husband after being ‘hit like a tornado’ by love for someone else.
i understand that Roberts, 55, who has been married to Channel 4 executive ian Katz, 54, for 25 years, is now living with a new partner.
‘i just fell in love — although i don’t want to go into with who,’ she says. ‘Obviously, what happened was not planned or ideal. i wasn’t sitting there thinking, “i’ve got to get out of [ this marriage]”, but, ‘[ Love] literally hit me like a tornado.
‘i’m sure menopause has something to do with that — you put your head up a bit from nurturing your children, you’re a little less tired and you think, “Actually, i may have half a life left.” it was subliminal in my case, but i was open to another way of living and another relationship.’
Roberts has four children with Katz, the chief content officer at Channel 4, whom she met while they were students at Oxford University. their separation, she tells the Daily telegraph, ‘was traumatic and disruptive. Because we’re not as a society set up to believe that separation and divorce is anything other than failure.
‘[ian and i] had a fantastic time. i felt i’d had the best of marriages and i wish in a way our society would accept and celebrate that, rather than make people feel they’re failures because their relationship ended after 30-odd years.
‘But i also think there have been some upsides — if you can be civil and put the family first, which we did, it’s possible for both parties to come out [of the marriage] and have the rest of their lives and this new exciting experience.’
Asked how their children have taken it, she insists: ‘Great. in many ways they’re seeing the benefits of having two Christmases, things like that.’ Katz declines to comment.