When Stephen died it was the speed of it all that stunned me at first. He’d been feeling tired and generally under the weather and I’d told him to see the GP, convinced that he had diplomatic flu (he was fed up at work). He was referred for further investigation immediately, which should have made us suspicious, but it took talk of an operation to make us realise that this was serious.

In the three weeks from his first visit to the doctor until the night he died, we didn’t face the possibility of his cancer being terminal, reassuring each other that something could be done. We were scared, but more of the treatment that lay ahead and how it would disrupt our lives before everything got back on track than fear that he would die.

Our families and several friends were in the house that night, as they had been regularly once we told them that Stephen was ill. His brother was helping him upstairs for a lie-down when Stephen called to me so urgently and desperately that I dropped the baby in my mum’s lap and ran to him. He just died there, at the bottom of the stairs, with his brother and me holding him.

You don’t expect someone to die at 30; it seemed totally unreal, telling our three-year-old daughter that Daddy had gone to heaven. Our son was still a baby and our family and friends, who were equally shocked, looked after everything for me to begin with. My grief was genuine, as was the shock. But the greatest shock of all soon followed, so shocking that I find it hard to write: I now prefer life without him.

Stephen and I met at university. Despite being totally different, we were inseparable instantly. I adored his relaxed attitude to life (I’ve always been a bit of a control freak). We worked well together, me getting him to his lectures, him persuading me that student life involved more than just studying. He proposed the day we graduated and we decided to get married the next summer, which meant a lot of organising. Suddenly we were doing very grown-up things. Or rather, I was, and Stephen was hovering in the background.

I had assumed that Stephen would become much more focused once we began working. I was doing my doctorate as well as working, but Stephen, a lawyer, never felt that he should help out more or focus on his career. His sick record (usually because of hangovers) was dreadful. He got annoyed when the first firm he worked in didn’t offer him a partnership. He moved to another one; two years later the same thing happened. He couldn’t grasp the connection between still living like a student and not being taken seriously. Perhaps I colluded in this, as it was easier for me to manage the finances and organise things. We were delighted when I became pregnant. He was a fantastic father to our children and still irresistible to me most of the time, except when I was too tired to appreciate a spontaneous bottle of champagne. When he died I thought it was the end of the world.

Then the second shock came: I realised how comfortable we now were financially. The mortgage was paid off instantly and Stephen’s pension kicked in. I’d had both of us insured to the hilt, and we now had a lot of money in the bank. It was an odd feeling, because Stephen believed in living beyond one’s means and I had had a gnawing worry about cash since we got our first mortgage. Mixed with my grief was relief that I no longer had to worry about money; as the months passed, I realised that while I still missed Stephen, I didn’t miss his unreliability. He was engaging, fun and charming, but sometimes you need the chores done. I know that he loved me dearly, but I also know that he felt I’d become immersed in domesticity, which is hard to avoid when juggling a job and young children. Over the years I’d become less lively and put on weight, but the misery of the first few months without Stephen led to me losing every extra pound and more.

Six months after Stephen’s death I was asked out by a divorced dad whom I knew vaguely. I had no intention of going, and that night I lay in bed and thought about what had happened in the previous six months. It sounds awful, but the only difference was that Stephen was no longer there.

My best friend says everyone thinks I’m being really brave, and that I shouldn’t close the door on meeting someone else. When I got upset she said that I probably found that hard to think about, but to give it time. I could never tell her the truth: I think I prefer my life now.

Do you live with a family secret?
How has it affected your life? Do you still struggle with it?
E-mail us at familysecrets@thetimes.co.uk
Or write to us at: Family Secrets, times2, 1 Pennington Street, London E98 1TT
Anonymity guaranteed

Times recommends

• How I lost the gift of joy for a while
• How to get Coleen Rooney's post-baby body
• The A-Z of winter style rules