How I survived divorce, triplets, and three cancer diagnoses to find strength (and some great sex)

As I write these words - soon-to-be 16-year-olds giggling downstairs and wondering what I’m going to wear for tonight’s date - I feel a quiet relief, like the first evidence of change. Progress I never, ever thought I’d make.

When I was first diagnosed with breast cancer back in 2010, I was a newly single mother of six-month-old triplets and their big brother. Survival was the only thing on my mind. Nothing else mattered during those 18 months of initial treatment and surgery. Or four years later when, just as I was falling in love with the man who would later become my husband, I was told the cancer had returned. Or, indeed, when a third diagnosis followed in 2019.

All I wanted was to be here, alive, a mum. And I knew how lucky I was. In 2022, my wonderful friend Dame Deborah James died from bowel cancer, touching the nation. I told anyone who’d listen how my friendship with Deborah had taught me to let more joy into my life, seize each moment and never give up.

I proudly wore a T-shirt emblazoned with Deborah’s famous words ‘Rebellious Hope’, but inside, hope was gone. Beneath the surface I was simply existing. And I felt guilt. Because, unlike Deborah and so many other friends, I’d somehow survived; I was in remission, though remaining on treatment. I had the privilege of being able to make plans, see my children blossom and flourish – all I’d ever hoped for since that first diagnosis.

So I held it together, just about, with my signature swipe of pink lipstick. Then, that same year I lost Deborah, my marriage abruptly ended. Divorce, I feared, would finally break me – but instead, something else happened. Coming through it, I encountered an unexpected and unfamiliar sense of peace. Even a strange kind of euphoria. Finally, I began to recognise my own resilience – the many devastating hurdles I’d managed to overcome, the life I’d managed to create for myself and my children. I felt a sense of pride in the woman I’d become.

Except when it came to relationships. And intimacy… That word still made me shudder. My body bore too many scars, and the heartbreak of my marriage ending just confirmed this. I came with too much ‘stuff’ to love.

While I didn’t particularly yearn for sex, I did crave closeness of a kind I couldn’t get from friends and family. Newly single, I needed gentle kisses, a hand on my lower back, bedtime spooning. I didn’t want to shut myself off from the possibility of love and connection. I wanted to approach dating in the same way I’d learned to approach the other areas of my life – by saying yes, being optimistic and jumping in. I couldn’t wait to feel ready because, truthfully, I wasn’t sure I ever would.

But I’d been through enough to know that courage often shows up after we take action. So I began with baby steps – a daytime coffee with a guy I’d briefly dated years earlier. We’d got on well and the idea of a catch-up didn’t feel too daunting. That initial coffee soon turned into a situationship and before I knew it, I was falling hook, line and sinker. I did an impressive job of diluting the aspects of my life I thought would cause him to retreat.

He knew about my health, but I glossed over it. Clinging to that old narrative – that I was too much, too complicated, too marked by life – I edited myself accordingly. Smoothed the edges. Made it all sound easier than it was, hoping I’d somehow fit better. And then, just like that, it was over. More heartbreak; more ‘evidence’ that I was ‘less than’.

A few gloomy months followed and, reluctantly, I downloaded the dreaded dating apps, feeling as though I had no other option than to brave them. It was soulless and grim. My outrage when the algorithm decided that Barry from Bognor was my most compatible match was at odds with a stubborn belief that I was undesirable and just not worth the effort. The self-talk was cruel.

Some comically bad dates followed. One took place on a park bench – his suggestion. It was October and freezing. He pulled a flask of tea and a couple of pieces of fruit out of his rucksack. I accepted the tea purely to warm my hands and politely passed on the offer of an easy-peel satsuma.

I persevered and, despite the dating disasters (or perhaps because of them), something began to shift. I began to view those encounters less as failures and more like field research. I was gathering data, seeing what made me feel alive and what didn’t. The dates became less about meeting ‘the one’ and more about me stepping into this latest version of myself – a woman in her prime who hadn’t just survived but grown stronger, who was finally starting to believe she was enough. Bit by bit, I was reconnecting with. my body on my own terms, not as something broken or needing to be hidden.

In early June, I went on one more date, just days before my Hinge dating app membership was due to expire. We talked openly from the start. He shared some heartbreaking details of his recent past and I told him a condensed but unfiltered version of the last 15 years of mine. We were two strangers, meeting for the first time, with nothing to gain from being anything other than honest.

It felt… refreshing. As did the fact that at long last, I was truly owning my story rather than attempting to package it in a more palatable way to suit a potential partner. Boy, did that feel good. And even after that relationship came to a close, it still does. I’ve since felt a warm hand on my lower back and have fallen asleep being beautifully spooned. I’ve shared my fears of being ‘seen’ – the scars, wonky boobs and texture of my tummy – because it’s felt safe to do so.

I’ve experienced a tenderness that has healed past wounds, and I’m grateful for that. But I also know that my peace is precious. I won’t trade it for attention or dilute myself for approval. And here’s another bit of the magic. I’ve started telling a different story, one in which cancer isn’t the headline but more of an ‘in other news’.

Cancer has altered and rearranged me but the healing, recovery, acceptance – I’ll take the credit for that. No more gripping on to unhealthy situations or feeling grateful for the bare minimum. I like myself more and know what I deserve. I’m holding love more loosely now – and myself a little tighter and far more lovingly. Finally.

Oh, and the sex and intimacy I was so afraid of? Absolutely bloody amazing. Scars and all.

Find Emma on Instagram @limitless_em