Melinda reveals that ‘voice in her head’ told her that she should leave Bill

She continued: “If there was something, the metaphor was a bit clear. Bill publicly acknowledged that he was not always loyal to me while we were married.

“In October things had achieved a fever when the New York Times published a deeply disturbing article that raised serious questions about Bill’s behavior – questions that suggested that he had not only betrayed our marriage, but also my values.”

Despite the chances, the businesswoman said she wanted to work on her marriage because of their family.

She admitted: “There had been other difficult periods in our relationship, other times when it felt like things could have fallen apart.

“But we loved each other, and we loved the family we had built together, so every time cracks appeared in our union, we had found ways to solve them.”

The philanthropist also said that they suffered from “Catholic guilt” and always felt busy family to have a successful marriage.

But in the last few weeks of 2019, Melinda said that the dreams became more drastic – and had the feeling that they were trying to “signal” something.

Especially in a dream, her and her family left on the side of a crumbling cliff.

She remembered: “I dreamed that we were all on a cliff – I, Bill, the children – when the ledge that I stood on, and I got away from my family.

“Even after my eyes flashed open, fear and loneliness persisted. As dramatic as it sounds, I knew at that time I had to make a decision – and that I should make it myself.”

Shortly thereafter, Melinda said that she started to hear a whisper on the edge of her consciousness’, describing it as’ the burst echo of a voice ‘.

While the voice spoke with ‘soft authority’, Melinda said that it shared a moving message about her marriage: “This is no longer good.”

She wrote: “That was, to be honest, something frightening to consider. And so in the beginning I tried to push the whisper away.

“I distracted myself with a long work trip and a visit to my daughter Phoebe, who did a semester abroad in South Africa.

“I threw myself in the winter vacation. At the end of the holiday I called my best friend of high school, Mary Lehman, and begged her to get on a plane. I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts. I had to talk.”

Melinda added: “Trying to ignore the whisper had not worked. It was just louder and more insistent. It was not unkind. It was not demanding. It was just … there, always, and repeated the same message again and again.”

When she came to the “end of her mind”, she decided that if she couldn’t turn away from the voice, she would turn there completely instead.

While Melinda planned a Solo return to New Mexico, she decided to take Bill into an attempt to save their marriage.

However, the voice was further strengthened there.

She wrote: “In the beginning, Bill and I tried to treat it like any other vacation. We walked. We ate together. But I also made sure that I deliberately had time aside for the quiet reflection I originally planned.

“And one night, while I sat down with a pen and my diary, I realized with a start that I knew why I would come to New Mexico.