text: At his lowest point in the 1980s, Bruce Jenner wanted to flee to Europe for gender reassignment surgery and return to America as his children's Aunt Heather. That was around the time his young sons asked their mother why their father had breasts. As Diane Sawyer's explosive tell-all with Bruce came to an end last night, his second wife published a blog detailing their love affair, idyllic marriage and the gender dysphoria revelations that led to their divorce after two sons and a seemingly picture perfect Malibu life. Linda Thompson, now 64, met Bruce at the Playboy mansion when he was separated from his first wife, Chrystie Crownover, the mother of his two eldest children. They fell in love and got married in Hawaii when she was already pregnant with their son Brandon. A few years later they welcomed a second son together, Brody. Scroll down for video . Former couple: Bruce Jenner and Linda Thompson (seen together) met at the Playboy mansion. They fell in love and got married when she was already pregnant with their first son, Brandon. They later had another son . As Linda wrote on the Huffington Post, 'Those were the happiest days of my life. I had a wonderful husband, who was the most athletic, high-spirited, energetic, easygoing, manly man imaginable. I had two beautiful, healthy baby boys. I had two great stepchildren. Life was just about as good as it gets.' Bruce was travelling the world doing paid appearances and lived a glamorous life in Malibu, frequently seeing his elder son, Burt, and daughter, Casey, from his first marriage. But when Brody was 18 months old and Brandon was three, Bruce revealed to Linda the secret that he finally told the world Friday night. She was, she insists, blindsided. With a 'somber look' Bruce told Linda - who had braced herself for the revelation of perhaps an affair - that he identified as a woman. 'What do you mean you identify as a woman?' she recalled asking. 'What does that mean? And just as he told Diane Sawyer, Bruce told his wife of four plus years that as long as he could remember, he felt wrong with the reflection staring back at him in the mirror. According to Linda, her handsome husband told her, 'I have lived in the wrong skin, the wrong body, my whole life. It is a living hell for me, and I really feel that I would like to move forward with the process of becoming a woman, the woman I have always been inside.' She insists she never saw it coming and there were no signs. Family: The couple's youngest son, Brody (left), was 18 months old and Brandon (right) was three when Bruce revealed to Linda (center) the secret that he finally told the world Friday night - that he identified as a woman . 'Champion': On Friday, Linda, now aged 64, took to Instagram to express her support for her former husband . Unlike Bruce's third wife Kris, who walked in on Jenner in a dress, Linda says there was no evidence he had ever raided her closet or wore any women's clothes. 'No. Not a clue. Nothing. Nada. Never,' she said. The couple entered therapy after Linda found someone who specialized in gender dysphoria, and the doctor 'broke my heart into a million pieces.' She quotes the doctor as telling the couple of the sobering suicide statistics of transgender people at the time - 25 per cent committed suicide- and told Linda she could stay with Bruce as he became a 'she' or Linda could divorce him. But she couldn't change Bruce. While the couple was gutting it out in therapy for six months in a bid to save their marriage, Linda writes, Bruce was struggling. According to Linda, Bruce 'considered traveling out of the country, possibly to Denmark, to have the gender-confirmation surgery and then come back to the U.S. identifying as female.' With four little ones running around under the age of ten, she didn't understand how that would work. ''What about the children?' He thought maybe he could reenter their lives as 'Aunt Heather.'' While she says he referred to himself as Heather at the time, he never revealed his female name to Diane Sawyer, referring to that identity as just 'She'. As Linda writes, she sobbed endlessly and was despondent about the end of her marriage, but as devastated as she was, her 'heart bled for Bruce'. Linda decided she didn't want to be married to a woman, their marriage ended, and a few years later, she married music producer David Foster. In the years during and after the couple split, Bruce started taking female hormones. He detailed to Diane that period in the '80s, saying that the hormones quieted and calmed his mind, while his breasts grew to a size 36B during the five years that he was taking them. Linda remembers the time well, too, and also remembers the lengths he went to in order to change his macho facade. Tearful: Bruce revealed that he identifies as a woman in his explosive interview with Diane Sawyer last night . Transitioning: 'One day, after having spent a little time at Bruce's house, both boys came into the kitchen and said to me, 'Mommy, we saw Daddy getting out of the shower naked, and Daddy has boobs!' writes Linda . 'Thirty years ago the only hair removal that was permanent was electrolysis,' Linda writes. 'Poor Bruce began the process of having electrolysis performed on his heavily bearded face. He then began having the hair on his chest removed.' And she - and their children - couldn't miss his newfound bosom. Linda writes that she had an open door policy for Bruce to see his children, and he was welcome to visit Brandon and Brody anytime. But, and she doesn't detail why, the boys never spent the night at Bruce's house and occasionally visited. Most likely it was to shield them, as an anecdote about seeing their father undressed led to a lot of confusion. 'One day, after having spent a little time at Bruce's house, both boys came into the kitchen and said to me, 'Mommy, we saw Daddy getting out of the shower naked, and Daddy has boobs!' And so she tried to cover for Bruce, their father. 'Well, boys, you know how your dad was super-muscular and trained very hard for the Olympics? He had big muscles, and some of those muscles are called 'pectorals.' When you stop training and you stop lifting weights, sometimes the muscle turns to fat. So his pectoral muscles have probably just gotten a little flabby and look like boobs.' Soon enough, the exhausting coverup of his transition ended, and it wasn't Bruce's gender dysphoria Linda was protecting them from. Bruce stopped taking hormones, didn't go to Denmark, and started dating again. A source told ET he had his breasts reduced. According to Bruce during his ABC interview, he chickened out of going through with it and stopped taking the hormones. Linda then strongly hints that Kris knew more about Bruce's gender identity crisis than Bruce let on to during the Diane Sawyer interview. Support: On the Diane Sawyer episode, Brody and Brandon both sit proudly alongside their father, supporting him fully as he enters the next phase of life as 'She'. And their mother also wishes Bruce well . Linda's second husband David foster showed his support for Bruce after the interview. David was Brody and Brandon's stepfather for 14 years- including the time Bruce cut the boys off. 'Bruce dated several women, even though he had begun his transition and showed signs of it. He had no facial hair, no chest hair, and boobs, and he had gotten a nose job and trimmed his Adam's apple. 'Clearly he was still confused and conflicted as to how fully he was ready to commit to changing his life completely.' Then he married Kris and stopped seeing his sons, the sons who'd seen his breasts, for years. 'After Bruce and Kris married, there were periods of several years going by without Bruce attempting to contact or visit his sons. No birthday cards or phone calls, no "Merry Christmas", no "Everything OK?" after the big Northridge earthquake. Nothing.' But, in hindsight, Linda believes, the revelation of what her sons' father was struggling with, and running away from, in the years he vanished from their lives, helps explain a lot. On the Diane Sawyer episode, Brody and Brandon both sit proudly with their father, supporting him fully as he enters the next phase of life as 'She'. And their mother also wishes him well. Linda took to Instagram to support him on Friday, hours before the TV show aired, writing: 'Once a champion of Olympian magnitude...now a champion for those who share the struggle to just be who they are. #compassion #acceptance #tolerance #education #evolution #kindness #inclusion.' And she ends her blog, 'I can now breathe a little easier, knowing he now has found the strength and the courage to fulfill his dream.' Linda divorced David Foster in 2005.
target: Linda Thompson, now 64, was married to Bruce Jenner from 1981 to '86 .
  She has published blog detailing how he told her of his gender struggles .
  Explains how revelations led to their divorce following births of two sons .
  Also speaks of Bruce's painful electrolysis and surgeries to feminize face .
  Young sons noticed father's breasts once; she lied to cover the changes .
  The pair, Brandon and Brody, now adults, supported Bruce in  ABC tell-all .
  This is despite Bruce having 'cut his sons out of his life for years' after he stopped taking female hormones and married his third wife, Kris Jenner .