Zenda Casey is the woman whose 30-year marriage ended only nine months after her husband Michael Johnsen was elected a NSW Nationals MP, when “politics took over our lives”.

She was his “most loyal supporter and best friend,” he said in his inaugural speech to parliament in March, 2015, after a traditional Nationals family values election campaign in which his wife featured prominently. Only weeks after the marriage ended in late 2015 he was in a relationship with a Sydney woman he met through his work.

Michael Johnsen and his then-wife Zenda at his offices in 2013, before their split. Credit:Max Mason-Hubers

Less than two weeks after Natalie Joyce pierced the privacy wall to reveal the pain of a wife who put her career on hold to support husband Barnaby Joyce, only to have their marriage end after his affair with a parliamentary staffer, Ms Casey has broken her silence with a pointed message for politicians.

She had no regrets about her long marriage, but she held “politics, the culture that surrounds it and the lifestyle it entails” as the primary reason for its end.