It was Julia Clark's ex-husband Peter who dropped her off at the airport to go and marry Egyptian toyboy Ahmed . The mum-of-three made the bold decision to leave her old life and family behind in the UK to follow her heart in Egypt in 2020. It was four years after she first crossed paths with hotel worker Ahmed while on holiday with Peter and their two daughters, Melissa and Amelia.
Ahmed, 35, added her on Facebook and they began chatting online, with the friendly conversation quickly turning romantic. He confessed he had feelings for her and she felt the same. Unable to ignore their chemistry, Julia, 53, asked Peter for a divorce and tied the knot with Ahmed instead.
But sadly, their whirlwind relationship was doomed. Julia said she gave Ahmed "the world ", but he wanted a second wife and children - which she could not fathom. Sharing her heartbreak, the stay-at-home mum said: "I felt stupid.
My ex, Peter, was a good man. I gave Ahmed everything." In 2017, Julia and Peter began their divorce process, remaining on friendly terms.
The following year, she flew to Egypt for a 12-day holiday and Ahmed popped the question - which lovestruck Julia happily accepted. Then in September 2020, she finally took the plunge and made the life-changing journey to move overseas. She enjoyed a farewell dinner with her daughters and Peter the evening before he drove her to the airport to drop her off.
Sharing her story with OK! Magazine , Julia explained: "We went out for a meal with our girls before I left – my daughters didn't cry and said they understood that I needed to create a new life. "On the morning I left, Peter took me to the airport and my suitcase fell off the trolley so he got out of the car to help me. He put his arm around me, kissed me on the cheek and told me to take care of myself.
" Peter's heartbreaking reaction has stuck with Julia years later. She continued: "I remember telling Melissa that I'm sure he walked away with tears in his eyes. I felt split – I was leaving my family but I was going to start a new life and I could always come back home.
" She eventually did, as her fairytale romance with Ahmed was short-lived. The couple married in Cairo, but according to Julia, "things went downhill" fast. She said: "Ahmed wasn't bothered about holding my hand in public anymore and he didn't want to take me out to cafés.
He would go out for hours at night and leave me in the flat alone, not having a clue where he was." In February 2022, Ahmed took Julia out to a 'beautiful' café she liked and dropped a huge 'bombshell' that 'broke' her. Julia recalled: "He told me that he needed to marry an Egyptian woman so he could have children as I'm older and had gone through the menopause.
It broke me. I couldn't sit there knowing that my husband was away having babies with another woman. "We had spoken about second wives throughout our relationship, but he'd told me that he didn't need anyone else and he didn't mind not having his own kids.
We married under Islamic law and they asked me what conditions I wanted to put in the marriage agreement, so I said I didn't want him to marry a second wife. "However, Ahmed was entitled to four wives, so we had it in writing that if he wanted another wife he had to get my permission which, obviously, I could never give. I told him I couldn't share him.
He told me to forget what he'd said, but I couldn't and we became distant. I backed off from the relationship because I didn't see a future in it." In September 2022, they divorced and Julia officially moved back to Lincoln in January this year.
She said "there's no chance of a reconciliation with Peter", but holds out hope of finding the one. She said: "I met another Egyptian man before I came back to the UK, someone nearer my age, and I think he truly cares about me. But during times of self-doubt, I think, 'It's not real', because I mistakenly thought what I had with Ahmed was real.
" Ahmed said: "It was an Islamic wedding in an Islamic country so technically I was allowed four wives. Julia is an English woman and I am an Egyptian man and there are many differences between us in thought and culture.".
