Broadcaster Kate Garraway has said she is finding a “new way to be in love” with her husband as he recovers from coronavirus.
Derek Draper, a 54-year-old former political adviser, contracted COVID-19 in March 2020 and spent 13 months in hospital before finally being allowed home.
While he is now free of the virus, his organs have been damaged and he requires care.
He struggles with speech and is sometimes bed-bound for days at a time.
Garraway, a Good Morning Britain presenter, told the Mail On Sunday’s You magazine: “I’m not sure that we’ve ever fallen out of love, but I think a new path is emerging, a new way to be in love.
“He puts huge trust in me. He just says, ‘Whatever you think’, which is wonderful, but I do get quite tearful about it. I think, ‘God, I hope I’m worthy of that trust’.
“But I’ve got his back. That is a relationship in itself, isn’t it? How many times do couples have doubts about each other?
“That’s a positive thing to come out of this, to have that certainty of each other. He and I are very close.”
The pair married in 2005 and have a daughter and a son together.
Kate Garraway pictured with her husband Derek Draper in 2019. Pic: James Gourley/ITV/Shutterstock
Garraway, who was made an MBE in the New Year’s Honours, recently took over hosting ITV series Life Stories from Piers Morgan.
She described recent months as an “emotional rollercoaster” and “gruelling”, but added that they had been much worse for her husband “because he’s living with it”.
“As much as it impacts on the children and myself, being in his body must be so much worse,” she said.
When asked about their future together, she said: “Derek is here with us, we’re still working our way through the process of understanding how he’s doing and what to do about it and where we go next.
“So it is very difficult, there are very hard days and nights, but, yeah, I’ve got a lot of hope.”