Now that her divorce from Tiger Woods is final, Elin Nordegren has broken her nine-month silence in an exclusive 19-hour sit-down with People magazine:

“I’ve been through hell. It’s hard to think you have this life, and then all of a sudden — was it a lie?” says the 30-year-old mother of two. “But I survived. It was hard, but it didn’t kill me. I have been through the stages of disbelief and shock, to anger and ultimately grief over the loss of the family I so badly wanted for my children.”

Elin, who is studying towards a college degree in psychology, says [of] her husband’s betrayal: “I felt stupid as more things were revealed. How could I not have known anything? The word ‘betrayal’ isn’t strong enough. I felt embarrassed for having been so deceived. I felt betrayed by many people around me. I never suspected, not a one. When all this was going on, I was home a lot more with pregnancies, then the children and my school. Initially, I thought we had a chance, and we tried really hard.”

She tells the magazine this was her first – and last – interview, as she intends to remain a private person.

Ultimately, though — even though I’m sure she’s found some satisfaction in her ex’s public derision and the complete dismantling of his once-marketable image (and its subsequent effect on his golf game) — nothing has given her more joy than the watching the Dwarf Elephant-unicorn hybrids frolicking in her diamond gardens from high atop the space station she had constructed out of platinum and lined with Mongolian cashmere and c-notes. “I find natural fibers breathe a bit better,” she’s quoted as saying.