Steph was horrified when she discovered that her GP husband had been having sex in his surgery. Steph tells us how she found out about his web of betrayal.
I first met Dr Michael Rusling in May 1999 at a medical conference in Sweden.
He was tall, dark and handsome, and sparks flew straight away.
He told me that he was a single father of two and had just separated from his wife.
He was charming and intelligent and we chatted non-stop as if we’d known each other for years.
The chemistry between us was electric.
Thinking that I would never see him again, that night we slept together.
After the conference I flew back to the UK and forgot all about him, assuming our encounter had just been a one night stand, albeit a pretty fantastic one.
Two weeks later, I had a phone call at work.
“Hi Stephanie,” a deep male voice started.
“It’s Mike. I hope you don’t mind me contacting you like this.”
He’d tracked down my number through my company to ask me if I wanted to meet up with him and I agreed.
A couple of days later, Mike had 30 red roses delivered to my house.
Later, he came to stay with me for a romantic weekend and swept me off my feet, showering me with compliments and presents.
Soon after that, we started a long distance relationship. He lived in Aberdeen and I lived in Hull.
I fell head over heels in love.
We would stay up until the small hours talking. It was the type of relationship where we’d finish each other’s sentences and whenever we left the house together, Mike would always hold my hand.
He seemed the perfect gentleman - so caring and attentive - and I looked up to him; I worshipped him.
Three months after we first met, Mike got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.
He put the biggest diamond ring I’d ever seen on my finger and without hesitating I said ‘Yes.’
I knew that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him.
We moved into my dream house, a beautiful farmhouse in Beverley, East Yorkshire.
As both of us had been married before, we didn’t want a big white wedding with lots of fuss.
So in January 2000 we got married in secret at our local register office, with just our photographer and a friend as witnesses.
We spent the night in a hotel, and then flew to India for a two week honeymoon.
It was simple, yet utterly romantic.
At first, we were the vision of wedded bliss.
He was very affectionate and attentive, and at weekends we would go out horse riding together.
Being with him changed me.
I’d always been an ambitious career girl and had decided a long time ago that I was never having kids.
But to my surprise, he brought out my maternal side and all of a sudden I set my heart on having children.
So in 2001 I started having IVF treatment, due to complications.
I noticed that Michael was a bit more distant than usual - he started working longer hours at his surgery and treated me at times like I was one of his patients, rather than his wife.
Then I started getting withheld phone calls at home, about 10 or 15 a day.
The calls were usually silent, but occasionally a woman would say “Is Mike there?”
When I asked Mike about it, he calmly told me that it was just a drugs firm rep trying to get hold of him.
Pushing my doubts to the back of my mind, I then found out that I was expecting twins.
When I was five months pregnant, I was waiting in the car one evening as Mike had nipped out to pick up some fish and chips.
His phone, which he had left on the dashboard, bleeped with a message.
Without thinking, I picked the phone up.
“Hi sexy Scorpio, how are you?” I read.
It was signed with a woman’s name.
I clutched my stomach as my world crashed down around me and I felt horribly sick.
Was my husband having an affair?
When Mike came back to the car, I confronted him and asked what was going on.
He told me that he had no idea and didn’t know who the woman was.
Then he phoned the woman’s phone number, right there and then in front of me.
Mike asked the woman on the other end of the phone how she had got his number and told her not to call him again.
I pushed my suspicions to the back of my mind.
Cool, calm, and collected, Mike always had a logical explanation for everything.
Naively, I thought that once the twins arrived, everything would be fine again between us.
The twins Georgina and Matthew were born by Caesarean section on Valentine’s Day in 2003.
But things didn’t improve.
I was diagnosed with post-natal depression and started receiving treatment from my GP and a community psychiatric nurse.
Things became very strained at home and I felt lonely and isolated.
Mike was very clinical and scientific with me, acting more like my doctor than my husband, when all I really wanted was for him to give me a cuddle.
But we continued to have a sexual relationship, despite our bickering.
Then, out of the blue, I discovered that I was pregnant again.
It came as a complete shock because it had happened naturally and I thought that we couldn’t conceive without IVF.
I gave birth to a son, William, in September 2005.
We almost broke up after he was born, but I thought that having William was a sign that we should give things another try.
But then the bombshell dropped.
I received an anonymous letter saying that Mike was having an affair at the Sydenham House Group Practice in Hull where he worked.
I burst into floods of tears as I held the letter in my hands.
There it was, all my suspicions finally confirmed in black and white in front of my eyes.
Miserable and exhausted, one day I snapped at Mike while he was washing up in the kitchen.
I shouted at him as he just laughed.
Seeing red, I slapped him across the face.
Mike immediately went to the police and reported what I had done.
Police came to the house and arrested me.
My three children screamed hysterically as they watched their Mummy get driven away in a police car.
I was put in a cold cell for eight hours and given a caution.
After that things went from bad to worse.
In 2006 I was flicking through the family camera when I came across some photos of an attractive female GP Mike was training at his surgery.
Putting two and two together, I was convinced that this must be the woman that the anonymous letter had referred to.
At my wits end, I wrote to her, asking her if she was having an affair with my husband, and sent the letter to the surgery.
Unbeknown to me, other staff at the practice opened my letter and read its contents.
They called an emergency meeting and confronted Mike about the allegations.
He denied having an affair with the female doctor, but admitted to having an affair with another colleague, which he claimed was now over.
Just before Christmas, Mike was told that he could carry on working for three months, but after that he would have to resign.
Mike blamed me for losing his job.
By February 2007, tensions between us reached fever pitch.
With three young children to look after, as well as suffering from a bad back, I was at the end of my tether.
One day, Mike was getting ready for an extra shift at work when we had a blazing argument about how much support he was giving me at home.
I asked him not to go to work, to stay and help me out at home instead, but he refused.
As he left the house to go to his car, I grabbed his medical bag in a desperate attempt to stop him leaving.
In a fit of anger, Mike pushed me to the ground.
He was later cautioned by the police.
A couple of days later, I was admitted into hospital for an un-related, pre-arranged operation to repair my stomach muscles.
When I came round from the anaesthetic, I realised that Mike wasn’t by my bedside, and a nurse had to go and find him.
I later found out that while I had been lying on my hospital bed recovering from major surgery, my husband had been visiting a lover.
The thought of leaving Mike ran through my mind, but I was confused and didn’t know what to do.
Every time I confronted Mike about his unfaithfulness, he just told me that we needed to stick together for the sake of the kids and that he loved me and he had learnt his lesson.
He was so convincing and I didn’t want my kids to grow up without a father.
In March 2007, Mike left Sydenham House to take up a new position as a GP somewhere else.
A week or so later, Mike called me one day to tell me that he was at the police station and had been arrested.
“Some serious complaints have been made against me,” he said.
It turned out that Mike had been arrested on suspicion of rape, false imprisonment and withholding medication.
It was the final nail in the coffin.
I couldn’t take any more lies.
I was humiliated and a shell of the bubbly, confident woman that I used to be.
I didn’t want my children growing up seeing how Daddy was treating Mummy and thinking that it was acceptable.
So in May 2007 I filed for divorce.
In September 2009, Mike was found guilty of misconduct by a General Medical Council panel.
Mike admitted to having affairs with both a patient and a co-worker at the Sydenham House Group Practice, and was banned from working as a GP.
The affair with his patient, a married grand-mother, had gone on for several months.
On one occasion they had sex in his consulting room while her husband waited outside.
Mike also had an eight month affair with a colleague.
Allegations that Mike threatened to withhold drugs from a depressed patient if she refused to have sex with him were dropped.
It’s taken me a long time to pick up the pieces.
For a couple of years after the divorce I didn’t leave the house, but thankfully the kids have kept me busy.
Bit by bit, I’ve regained my independence and got my life back.
I’ve started a new job as a health care manager, and am in a new relationship with a loving man who understands what I have been through.
I’m determined not to be a victim, and want to put my ordeal to some good use.
So I’ve set up a website,
www.patientabuse.co.uk, aimed at vulnerable people who might feel at risk of or are suffering abuse by medical professionals.
It’s still early days, but I want to protect my children and ensure that this doesn’t happen to anyone else.
I realise now, that the man I called my husband was a complete stranger.
I don’t hate him – how can you hate someone you never really knew?