First time Ive heard someone use depression as an excuse for having an affair!
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/pri...-affair-with-friends-wife-20120529-1zgts.html
The former golden boy of rugby league, Andrew Ettingshausen, has broken his silence on his affair with a former teammate's wife, revealing he has spent the past 15 months undergoing psychiatric treatment, blaming his "poor judgment' on depression.
His wife, Monique, has so far stood by her husband, but is yet to forgive him for the 12-month affair with Ali Mellor, wife of Paul Mellor.
"I have no words to explain the deep regret I feel. I have thrown away my whole life, all that I treasured, all that I was blessed to have," Ettingshausen, known as E.T., told the June
Australian Women's Weekly, which hits newsstands tomorrow.
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"I discarded the most important person in the world to me. My wife, Monique, was my best friend, my soul mate and the love of my life. Words can't describe the pain I feel when I look into Monique's eyes. Her eyes reflect the disgust, the hurt and the gut-wrenching betrayal that I have brought to her life. I feel far beneath any level of humankind. Every day, I cry tears of shame and my mind aches with an intensity that no medicine can cure."
Jilted wives, feuding footballers and sex scandals are the stuff of gossip magazine legend but, even by their own salacious standards, Ettingshausen confessional over no less than eight pages of
The Australian Women's Weekly makes for uneasy reading.
Eight weeks after Channel Nine's
A Current Affair aired a scathing report revealing Ettingshausen had a 12-month affair with the wife of his former close friend, Ettingshausen is still begging his devastated wife for forgiveness.
"I am going to spend the rest of my life trying to win Monique's love back," Ettingshausen said during a three-hour interview at their Cronulla home.
But the wife and mother of his four children quickly interjected: "Because I haven't given it back yet. Even though I am here doing this story, I've still got a long way to go before I can say I love him."
They posed, grim-faced, in a series of awkward photos, including one showing the bulky sports star at his angry wife's feet, clutching her lap like a little boy pleading for mercy.
It is an extraordinarily candid display from the couple, Ettingshausen claiming he spiralled into a depression when a fishing lodge he opened in the Gulf of Carpentaria went bust, plunging the family into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt.
Married for 24 years, the Ettingshausens, both 46, were teenage sweethearts and met at high school.
They approached the magazine to do the interview and were not paid. Ettingshausen denied he was blaming depression to mitigate any damage to his previously "squeaky clean" image, which he has capitalised on professionally with product endorsements and media jobs since retiring from football in 2000.
Mellor told
A Current Affair in March the tawdry details of the affair would give Ettingshausen's loyal fans "a better understanding of who he really is".
Mellor and his wife are "working through" their difficulties, although the affair has clearly taken a heavy toll.
But Ettingshausen reveals he has been seeing a psychologist, and more recently a psychiatrist, since the affair ended.
The magazine reports he has been diagnosed with having suffered from a severe depression and clinical condition known as "dissociation".
"My self-esteem was at an all time low and I felt worthless, hurt and confused," he said.
"I was depressed and disconnected from reality. I was trying desperately to cope with a never-ending list of problems and running from the present in panic. It was the lowest point of my life. I was devoid of emotion, living a dysfunctional existence and had no love or care for anything."
When asked if citing depression was a "cop out", Ettingshausen chose his words carefully to respond.
"In the end choices were made and I take responsibility for those choices. During this period I wasn't in a good position mentally to make careful judgments. What has happened is a tragedy that never would have happened if I was in a normal, stable mind."
Ettingshausen, who played for Cronulla, NSW in State of Origin and Australia, retired in 2000.
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