{"id":436364,"date":"2026-02-20T16:04:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T16:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/436364\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T16:04:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T16:04:13","slug":"how-my-split-from-eamonn-broke-me-for-first-time-emotional-ruth-langsford-tells-devastating-way-her-marriage-ended-how-the-trauma-left-her-in-therapy-and-the-moment-she-took-her-ring-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/436364\/","title":{"rendered":"How my split from Eamonn broke me: For first time emotional RUTH LANGSFORD tells devastating way her marriage ended, how the trauma left her in therapy… and the moment she took her ring off"},"content":{"rendered":"

A year after her split from husband Eamonn Holmes<\/a>, Ruth Langsford<\/a> was still wearing her platinum wedding ring. Occasionally her gang of close girlfriends would ask why, and she\u2019d reply, reflexively, that she was still married. One night in May last year, the subject came up again. This time Ruth stopped to think. \u2018I realised, \u201cWell, I\u2019m not really… I\u2019m not still married. I mean I am, but only on paper.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Take your ring off now,\u2019 her friends urged. \u2018Do it with us.\u2019 So she did. \u2018I was crying my eyes out because it\u2019s a big thing, isn\u2019t it,\u2019 she says today. \u2018It\u2019s one of those moments of acceptance. Wow. That\u2019s it. I\u2019m not married any more. I\u2019m getting divorced.\u2019<\/p>\n

As she talks, Ruth, 65, starts to cry. They\u2019re not the kind of pretty tears that can be whisked away by a manicured finger, but the proper sort that make her voice, as rich and familiar off screen as it is on camera, catch and thicken. You believe her when she says, \u2018It\u2019s been almost two years since we announced our separation, but it feels like two months to me.\u2019<\/p>\n

She was blindsided by the 2024 split from the man who\u2019d been her partner for 27 years and her husband for 14. \u2018In my opinion,\u2019 she says carefully, \u2018I had a very happy marriage. Of course you question yourself: did I miss something, was I not aware, was I too busy? But there\u2019s no point playing the blame game.<\/p>\n

\u2018I just didn\u2019t think I\u2019d find myself here, and I wasn\u2019t strong at the start. I was broken. Broken heart. Broken dreams. We all have an image of how we think our life and future is going to be. This wasn\u2019t mine. I was devastated. We had gone from being a couple, traversing the usual ups and downs of a marriage, to an abrupt end. It was a huge shock.<\/p>\n

\u2018I had to give myself a good talking to because I was catastrophising: I\u2019m going to be on my own, I don\u2019t have a partner, what am I going to do? I was literally asking, \u201cWhat\u2019s going to become of me?\u201d, like some sad, lonely woman in a Jane Austen novel. But then age and experience told me, \u201cRuth, you\u2019re not going to die from this. I mean you are going to die, one day, but you\u2019re not going to die from divorce.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n

\"Ruth <\/p>\n

Ruth Langsford was\u00a0blindsided by the 2024 split from Eamonn Holmes \u2013 the man who\u2019d been her partner for 27 years and her husband for 14 (PICTURE:\u00a0Nicky Johnston)<\/p>\n

\"Ruth <\/p>\n

Ruth says she and her husband had ‘gone from being a couple, traversing the usual ups and downs of a marriage, to an abrupt end’\u00a0(PICTURE: Nicky Johnston)<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Eamonn and Ruth made up a\u00a0golden husband-and-wife team who hosted This Morning from 2006 to 2021<\/p>\n

That realisation brought another moment of acceptance. \u2018I knew,\u2019 she says firmly, \u2018that I needed to create my own happiness.\u2019 And so she set about doing just that, cracking on with work, mothering her son Jack, now 23, cooking, travelling and gardening. She also wrote her first ever book. Unlike some women in the public eye, Ruth has shunned all invitations to author an early-career autobiography or to put her name to a ghosted novel. She wanted to wait until she had something to say and here it is, Feeling Fabulous, part memoir, part manifesto for midlife.<\/p>\n

This is 200 pages of how to feel your best, look your best and do your best, based on Ruth\u2019s six decades of life, on and off the telly. Reading it feels like a long conversation between chums, were they to include a careers coach, a family therapist and a wardrobe mistress.<\/p>\n

The Ruth who leaps from the pages is the woman with the curler in her fringe, the annoying bra that chafes and a fondness for a strong G&T and excellent cake. She speaks as a member of the \u2018sandwich generation\u2019, someone who juggled her job with raising a family and caring for parents with dementia. The book also marks the first time she has spoken about losing her big sister Julia to suicide, sharing what that tragedy taught her about grief and loss.<\/p>\n

Eamonn\u2019s in there too as Jack\u2019s dad, one half of the golden husband-and-wife team who hosted This Morning from 2006 to 2021 and the man who was Ruth\u2019s noisiest cheerleader in the fickle world of TV. When addressing the end of their relationship in print, it\u2019s about how she coped, not how she folded.<\/p>\n

\u2018I share experiences that have helped me, that say you are not the only person going through this,\u2019 she explains. \u2018Because when you are on TV, people seem to think you live in a gilded cage where nothing goes wrong.\u2019 She doesn\u2019t need to add that even when you are partnered with the divine Anton Du Beke on Strictly Come Dancing as she was back in 2017, and have Rylan on speed dial, things do go wrong.<\/p>\n

Ruth has been a fixture on our screens for the last 30 years \u2013 she was fronting This Morning and Loose Women during the early noughties. Yet she never had a career plan and fell into TV by accident, after a chance meeting in a pub. Her background is not what you\u2019d expect from her Home Counties Head Girl vibe. She had a wildly peripatetic childhood courtesy of her father\u2019s military service, and was expelled from school at 16, getting just four O-levels, one of which was needlework.<\/p>\n

Her first job was doing continuity for the local company serving the south west, which disappeared in the great 80s franchise shake-up. Being made redundant forced her into a life of precarious freelancing in London. The recurring themes of Feeling Fabulous \u2013 being resilient, seizing opportunities and overcoming even the most crushing case of imposter syndrome \u2013 are all lessons she learned from those early years.<\/p>\n

Eamonn was already a name when he spotted Ruth on Countryfile, doing a piece to camera off the coast of Northern Ireland in a boat. She\u2019s a rubbish sailor but, she shrugs, \u2018Everyone has a mortgage to pay.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"Ruth <\/p>\n

Ruth has been a fixture on our screens for the last 30 years, fronting This Morning and Loose Women during the early Noughties<\/p>\n

\"She <\/p>\n

She never had a career plan and fell into TV by accident, after a chance meeting in a pub (pictured on Loose Women alongside\u00a0Kelly Brook, Janet Street-Porter and Kelle Bryan)<\/p>\n

\"Ruth <\/p>\n

Ruth was\u00a0partnered with Anton Du Beke on Strictly Come Dancing back in 2017<\/p>\n

When they subsequently met in real life he remembered the exact red shirt she\u2019d been wearing and that was that. \u2018I thought I had found my soulmate,\u2019 she says. Their love affair was 24-carat TV gold, all the on-screen chemistry of two brilliant and compatible presenters, with the promise of a genuine domestic tiff about dishwasher stacking or whatever was on This Morning\u2019s running order. \u2018It\u2019s authenticity isn\u2019t it,\u2019 she reflects.<\/p>\n

\u2018We never had a full-blown argument on screen, we were too professional for that, but there is the banter that comes in a marriage and we didn\u2019t hide much. We were not a manufactured screen pairing, all sweetness and light, best friends, we were a genuine married couple, and people related to that. We were reality. It just worked.\u2019<\/p>\n

I ask her if she thinks, looking back, that sharing so much on camera put any pressure on their marriage. \u2018It didn\u2019t for me,\u2019 she says without hesitation. \u2018But you\u2019d have to ask Eamonn if he thought so.\u2019 She points out that she has always drawn a line under her working day, dumping her bag at the door as she dashed into the kitchen to get the dinner on and help Jack with his homework. \u2018Eamonn would say, \u201cLet\u2019s talk about this thing for tomorrow,\u201d and I\u2019d be like, \u201cNo, I am done\u201d.\u2019<\/p>\n

Plus, she adds, she\u2019s never been one for the glitz and glamour of her industry, preferring a night on the sofa in front of Coronation Street to pouring herself into a red carpet frock. \u2018I might be Ruth off the telly,\u2019 she says, \u2018but I am definitely not showbiz. I am also Ruth in the garden centre, Ruth in the supermarket queue and Ruth at the tip.\u2019<\/p>\n

She loves domesticity and, despite her stellar career, had always wanted to preside over a busy household. However, since she was already an older mother, and Eamonn had three children from his first marriage, she had to stop after one baby. \u2018I remember looking at Jack being cute and I said, \u201cShould we have another one?\u201d Eamonn just went, \u201cJesus, really? Four kids!\u201d He didn\u2019t say no, it just stopped me in my tracks. I thought, \u201cYou know what, Ruth, don\u2019t push your luck, you\u2019re 42, you conceived naturally, had a good pregnancy and a healthy baby. Be grateful.\u201d But yes, in another life I saw myself with more.\u2019<\/p>\n

Being pragmatic and grateful instead of pining over what-ifs is another recurring theme in the book, and Ruth would be the first to say her life back then was bliss: she had a brilliant job, a happy marriage and a gorgeous son. Then came her decade of tragedy. Both of her parents were diagnosed with Alzheimer\u2019s disease, her father dying in 2012, her mother still alive today at the age of 94. Later, in 2019, her sister Julia took her own life after a long battle with depression.<\/p>\n

Ruth writes movingly about this in the book \u2013 although she has never been able to talk about it on screen. \u2018Look at me, how could I?\u2019 she asks as she crumples and pulls back her sleeve to reveal the simple silver Tiffany bracelet she gave Julia as a thank you for being her bridesmaid back in 2010. She doesn\u2019t ever take it off.<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s the\u2026 the just not seeing her. When you think of that person and know you\u2019ll never see them again and you never know why, you\u2019re just left with this loss,\u2019 she says through tears. She is painfully honest about what she could have done differently, which would have been to listen to Julia, instead of trying to offer solutions to her sadness. \u2018I was doing it from a place of unconditional and bottomless love, but I realise now that in trying to help I was just putting pressure on her,\u2019 she reflects. It\u2019s a brave thing for Ruth to acknowledge to herself, and an even braver thing to share in the hope it will be instructive to someone supporting a loved one going through a mental health crisis.<\/p>\n

\"In <\/p>\n

In 2019, Ruth’s sister Julia took her own life after a long battle with depression<\/p>\n

\"Ruth <\/p>\n

Ruth with then husband Eamonn Holmes, alongside their son Jack and daughter Rebecca<\/p>\n

Ruth was still coping with the fallout from all of this when her marriage broke down, and Eamonn hastily began a relationship with counsellor Katie Alexander, 22 years his junior.<\/a> (This is something she won\u2019t talk about today, nor will she discuss the granular detail of the split to protect Jack\u2019s privacy. \u2018That, 100 per cent, more than anything,\u2019 she says.) But this was the point at which she accepted she needed professional help. \u2018Girlfriends are there for you come what may, but I needed a trained counsellor, someone who didn\u2019t know me, to help me see the way through all the darkness.\u2019<\/p>\n

She spent her first three therapy sessions on Zoom with just the top of her head on show, her face bowed over her keyboard, howling. \u2018She said to me, \u201cRuth, this is grief. This is trauma and you are in shock. Let it all out.\u201d\u2019 It would be several more months until she accepted what her therapist then told her: \u2018It might be a bumpy journey, but you\u2019ll be all right. You have to believe that, because what else are you going to think? \u201cArghh, my life is going to be sh*t\u201d No, you have to believe that there is a future for you.\u2019<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been six or eight weeks since her last session; these days she only asks for one when she feels the need. \u2018I don\u2019t want to spend all my time looking back, because the danger is that you start negating your whole relationship and marriage, and I don\u2019t think that\u2019s right. I had many happy years with Eamonn. It just didn\u2019t last. Now I have to look forward.\u2019<\/p>\n

So she is, and she\u2019s written a cracker of a book about making the best of the rest, about why life can be renewed in middle age, and not letting your sense of self, your style, your confidence, your joy and especially your purpose go AWOL.<\/p>\n

\u2018I won\u2019t drag on at work until I am 95,\u2019 she says, \u2018but right now I\u2019m at the top of my game.\u2019 She\u2019s comfortable with ageing and won\u2019t do fat jabs (\u2018though I\u2019m so tempted\u2019) or tweakments. \u2018If I\u2019d had Botox I\u2019d be asking for my money back,\u2019 she snorts. While she says she\u2019d \u2018never say never\u2019 about any of them, she\u2019ll stick with HRT and the Pilates machine she bought off QVC for now.<\/p>\n

As for her private life, she\u2019s not seeing anyone, hasn\u2019t been on so much as a chaste coffee date yet. \u2018I\u2019m not ready for a new partner, I haven\u2019t healed from the last one. But I haven\u2019t been put off men, relationships or love. I haven\u2019t even been put off marriage. I have not become a bitter old man-hater but right now I\u2019m just living my own life and seeing where it takes me. I\u2019m on a different path.\u2019<\/p>\n

I ask her to finish telling the story of her wedding ring, and being a trouper, she does. The night she took it off she put it back in its box and then stuck it in a drawer. The next day, as she washed her face, she was startled by the unfamiliar bareness of her finger.<\/p>\n

\u2018I thought, \u201cOhhhhhh!\u201d\u2019 she exclaims. \u2018And then\u2026 it felt right.\u2019<\/p>\n

Feeling Fabulous by Ruth Langsford (Hodder & Stoughton, \u00a322) will be published on Thursday. \u00a9 Ruth Langsford 2026. To order a copy for \u00a318.70 (offer valid to 07\/03\/26; UK P&P free on orders over \u00a325) go to www.mailshop.co.uk\/books<\/a> or call 020 3176 2937.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A year after her split from husband Eamonn Holmes, Ruth Langsford was still wearing her platinum wedding ring.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":436365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[97,96,59,5908,1471,478,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-436364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-dailymail","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-ruth-langsford","tag-this-morning","tag-tvshowbiz","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}