Daisy May Cooper admits a Mumsnet post made her realise she wanted a divorce during lockdown

Virgin Radio

7 Sep 2022, 15:55

Credit: Getty

This Country actor and comedian Daisy May Cooper has reflected on living through a 'loveless marriage' with her ex husband and admitted she knew their relationship was over just weeks after she gave birth to their second child.

Speaking openly about her split from former partner Will Weston, she has admitted that 'there wasn't real love there' but they both felt pressure to 'settle down'. They married in 2019 but split two years later and share Jack, born in October 2020, and daughter Pip, four.

She told The Times Culture: “Will is amazing,” she says. “An incredible, incredible dad. But fundamentally, there wasn’t real love there. I don’t think there ever was, really. It’s weird. And I think he sort of agrees with that too. And then lockdown was like shining a spotlight onto it.”

After reading an emotional Mumsnet parenting post, she realised she was in the same unhappy boat. She said: "There was this woman in her seventies — and this isn’t funny — who did this whole post saying, ‘If you’re scared of leaving your husband because you’re miserable, listen to me. My husband has made me so unhappy for such a long time.

"He owns all the money and only gives me a very small allowance. I’m literally just existing.’ And she’s squirrelled away money over the space of, like, ten years, to escape. And she said, ‘But now my life is just about starting again.’ I was in tears reading it, wondering how many other women are trapped in these marriages.”

Daisy realised life was 'too short to not be happy' and added: "I had tears streaming down my cheeks. I told my husband — well, my then-husband — 'I've got to go outside, just walk, on my own'."

On not regretting her choice to leave, she said: “If anything, maybe the biggest problem was I stuck around too long. And you know when something’s just not working. I think we both tried to make it work but it probably hadn’t been working for what, three years? I think all women do that. Especially when you’ve got kids, you try to have this nuclear family at the expense of everything. Why? What’s the point? It’s only now, actually, I’m starting to be honest about who I am and live the life I feel that I should live and not for somebody else.”

Advertisement

Advertisement