Television personality Coleen Nolan has made a candid admission about the breakdown of her first marriage to EastEnders actor Shane Richie, revealing she believes she remained in the union for years longer than was healthy.
The pivotal therapy session
The 60-year-old Loose Women panellist discussed the difficult split during a conversation with her eldest son, Shane Nolan, who is now 37, on her YouTube channel. Nolan, who has been married and divorced twice, explained that a deep-seated fear of creating a 'broken home' for her two young sons kept her in the marriage.
"I think I stayed two years longer than I should have. Because of you and Jake," she told her son. "I had this real thing, I had this thing about 'my kids are going to be from a broken home'. I'm Coleen Nolan and I'm divorced and I hated it."
A change in perspective
Nolan stated that it was a course of therapy that ultimately provided the clarity she needed to leave. Her therapist posed a powerful question that reframed her entire thinking.
"She said to me: 'But you're going to bring two boys up to believe it's OK to behave like that and their wife or girlfriend should put up with it,'" Nolan recalled. That statement was the catalyst for action. "As soon as I said that I went to the solicitors because I thought: 'Oh I don't want that either. I want them to know that if you treat people this way you're going to lose them.'"
Life after the split
Coleen Nolan and Shane Richie married in 1990 and separated in 1997, finalising their divorce in 1999 amidst allegations of infidelity. Together they share two sons: Shane, now 37, and singer Jake Roche, 33.
Nolan later married musician Ray Fensome in 2007, a union that lasted 11 years before they divorced in 2018. They have a daughter together, Ciara Fensome, who was born in 2001.
Despite the pain of her first divorce, Nolan emphasised that she and Richie worked hard to ensure their children maintained strong relationships with both parents. "It's worked out great and it takes a lot of effort for it to work out great," she said. "I think it's something you've got to put effort into when you've got children."
Her son Shane agreed, praising his mother for not using him and his brother "as a weapon like a lot of men and women have in the past."
The interview comes as Nolan prepares to launch her new one-woman show, This Is Me, next month. The show will chart her life story, a narrative she says is built on honesty. "People have asked me whether my honesty and openness has ever left me feeling vulnerable," she told Woman’s Weekly. "I can only answer that I can sleep better knowing I've been honest."
