"How I learnt to love my lying, dying husband

After a runaway wedding, Kerstin Pilz's delirious romantic bliss was shattered when her new husband was diagnosed with cancer, and she discovered he'd been cheating on her.

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Raiding my husband's inbox had been a very bad idea. This thought was on repeat in my head as I sat opposite a senior monk in mustard robes, mesmerised by his ability to sit in full lotus.

He wanted me to focus on my breath. "Watch it rise and fall," he said. It sounded easy, but my mind kept returning to the moment that changed everything. The moment I pressed enter on my husband's inbox, triggering a nuclear explosion in my heart.

That was when I learned my terminally ill husband, Gianni, had been a serially unfaithful philanderer for most of our marriage. Reading through his inbox I felt physically sick. Shortly after our wedding, he'd returned to his hometown, Rome, to visit his elderly mother, and, unbeknown to me, a handful of longstanding lovers. Once he'd resumed his old ways, as I was discovering, there was no stopping him.

I never thought I'd turn to a monk for advice, but after two complimentary counselling sessions at the hospital where Gianni was undergoing radiation treatment to shrink the golf ball-sized tumour in his brain, I knew therapy would take too long. I needed a crash course in forgiveness.

Time was running out and I had to choose. Stay and care for my lying, dying, cheating spouse? Or leave him when he was at his most vulnerable? What would I regret more? What would serve us both? Buddhists are supposed to be experts at such things, so I figured a 10-day silent meditation retreat at a monastery in Thailand was my best option. Living alongside real monks, I'd become spiritually awakened through absorption, keeping my heart open when it was broken.

The therapist at the hospital didn't think this was a good idea, offering antidepressants instead. But I didn't want drugs.

I'd already tried self-medicating with wine, but it only made me feel worse. I needed to be awake to figure this out and I needed new tools. So, I booked a ticket to Thailand.