I was broken when my husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer – then I opened his emails & discovered his sick secret
KERSTIN Pilz felt her heart flutter as the handsome man across the buffet caught her eye.
Offering to top up her wine, she was immediately captivated by his sparkling green eyes and Italian accent.
“He introduced himself as Gianni and told me he’d been a forensic psychiatrist in Rome and had retired early before coming to Australia,” Kerstin says.
“He fascinated me, and I couldn’t shake him from my head when he walked away.”
It was 2005, and Kerstin was the head of Sydney’s Macquarie University’s Italian studies department.
Her PhD had been published as a book, and she was speaking at the launch.
“In my early 40s, I’d always put my career ahead of love, but I was lonely,” she admits.
“So, when Gianni contacted me two weeks later and offered to take me on a date, I agreed.”
The pair went out to dinner and Kerstin claims their connection was ‘undeniable.’
The couple became inseparable and travelled from opposite sides of the city to see one another for two months before Gianni suggested they move in together.
“He told me he wanted to spend every spare moment with me,” Kerstin says.
“He moved into my unit, and life was a fairytale.
“We both loved to travel and went to South Africa and India together.”
In March 2008, Kerstin and Gianni married on board a ship south of the equator, five nautical miles off the coast of West Africa, before settling down in far North Queensland.
“Little did we know our world was about to be turned upside down,” she says.
In January 2009, Gianni received news that a lump on his ear was a cancerous tumour.
Doctors told Gianni the cancer had spread to his lymph nodes and lungs.
“Gianni sat in silence as I burst into tears,” Kerstin remembers.
He chose to have surgery to help prolong his life.
Surgeons removed 34 lymph nodes from his neck, and then he had open lung surgery to remove the cancer from there.
“His health still deteriorated, and I became his primary carer,” Kerstin says.
“Watching a man, once so full of life, fade away was horrific.”
But the couple were dealt a further devastating blow when doctors discovered the cancer had spread to Gianni’s brain and was now stage four.
In February 2010, Gianni needed some medical files from his email inbox, which he could only access from home, so he gave Kerstin his password.
“Logging in, an email from a woman I’d never heard of caught my eye,” she says.
“‘Che Bella Donna, what a beautiful woman’, the subject line read.
“Scrolling quickly, I ignored it.”
But in the days that followed, Kerstin struggled to get the email out of her head.
“So, three weeks later, I poured myself a glass of red wine for liquid courage and logged back in,” she says.
“As the email chain loaded, I struggled to comprehend what I was reading.
“‘It was so lovely meeting you and Fabienne the other night. You’re the perfect couple,’ the email said.
“I thought ‘Who the hell is Fabienne?’
The list of his lovers became longer than I could count on one hand
Kerstin Pilz
“I typed her name into the search bar and took a steady breath as the screen filled with hundreds of emails.”
The last one was sent only three days earlier, and the first two years before Kerstin had even met Gianni.
“Tears came as I realised our whole life together had been a lie,” she says.
“I scrolled, and it soon became apparent that Fabienne wasn’t his only mistress.
“The list of his lovers became longer than I could count on one hand.
“He’d even been emailing some of them on our wedding night.
“With my heart breaking I realised that was what he had been doing on all of his trips to Italy.
“I had no idea what to do, could I really leave a dying man?”
Four red flags your partner is cheating
Private Investigator Aaron Bond from BondRees revealed four warning signs your partner might be cheating.
They start to take their phone everywhere with them
In close relationships, it’s normal to know each other’s passwords and use each other’s phones, if their phone habits change then they may be hiding something.
Aaron says: “If your partner starts changing their passwords, starts taking their phone everywhere with them, even around the house or they become defensive when you ask to use their phone it could be a sign of them not being faithful.”
“You should also look at how they place their phone down when not in use. If they face the phone with the screen facing down, then they could be hiding something.”
They start telling you less about their day
When partners cheat they can start to avoid you, this could be down to them feeling guilty or because it makes it easier for them to lie to you.
“If you feel like your partner has suddenly begun to avoid you and they don’t want to do things with you any more or they stop telling you about their day then this is another red flag.”
“Partners often avoid their spouses or tell them less about their day because cheating can be tough, remembering all of your lies is impossible and it’s an easy way to get caught out,” says Aaron.
Their libido changes
Your partner’s libido can change for a range of reasons so it may not be a sure sign of cheating but it can be a red flag according to Aaron.
Aaron says: “Cheaters often have less sex at home because they are cheating, but on occasions, they may also have more sex at home, this is because they feel guilty and use this increase in sex to hide their cheating. You may also find that your partner will start to introduce new things into your sex life that weren’t there before.”
They become negative towards you
Cheaters know that cheating is wrong and to them, it will feel good, this can cause tension and anxiety within themselves which they will need to justify.
“To get rid of the tension they feel inside they will try to convince themselves that you are the problem and they will become critical of you out of nowhere. Maybe you haven’t walked the dog that day, put the dishes away or read a book to your children before bedtime. A small problem like this can now feel like a big deal and if you experience this your partner could be cheating,” warns Aaron.
The following day, Kerstin collected Gianni from the hospital following brain surgery.
“He was so pleased to finally leave after three gruelling weeks in the hospital that, for a moment, I considered keeping his secret, ignoring what I found and moving on.
“I didn’t want to confide in anyone, but my head was a mess.”
Instead, Kerstin decided to write everything down in a letter to Gianni explaining what she had found out.
But his reaction came as a surprise.
“He told me it was my fault that he’d cheated on me,” she says.
“I later came to understand this was the typical reaction of a narcissistic personality.
“I was heartbroken.”
Kerstin began therapy, attended silent meditation retreats and began journalling in a bid to work through her pain.
“I knew I didn’t want to be the woman who left her dying husband,” she says.
“So, despite my anger and my grief, I chose to stay.
“If he’d been well, we would have separated, but in the face of death, I realised we had a chance to heal what was broken between us.
“It was challenging, but I made it work.”
Our relationship after the affair had never been the same
Kerstin Pilz
After four years together, on January 1, 2011, Gianni passed away at home aged 60 with Kerstin by his side.
“Our relationship after the affair had never been the same, but over time, I was able to let go of some anger,” she says.
“Through writing, I realised I was the hero of my own story, not the victim.
“I had fallen apart, but I’d also picked myself up.
“Discovering the healing power of writing while grieving was life-changing.”
Kerstin now holds writing and yoga retreats in Bali, Vietnam, Italy and Byron Bay.
She says: “Those journals inspired my memoir Loving My Lying, Dying, Cheating Husband: A Whirlwind Romance Gone Wrong.
“Since my book was published, I’ve had messages from people worldwide sharing how it helped them through their grief and pain.
“Helping others heal as I did is so fulfilling, and I want people to know there is light on the other side of darkness.”
Loving My Lying, Dying, Cheating Husband, $34.99 AFFIRM PRESS