Cheryl’s pain over the new Mrs Cole

We're all guilty of looking back at our lives and wondering, “What if?”– especially when someone in your past announces happy news. So, who can blame Cheryl for feeling a bit blue about ex-husband Ashley Cole getting engaged to Italian model Sharon Canu?

But, as an insider tells us, it’s more than just nostalgia. The singer is on a full-blown memory lane bender, as she wonders how things could have been different if they'd only stayed together.

"Cheryl still thinks of Ashley as the love of her life," says a friend close to the star, who divorced former footballer Ashley in 2012 after four years of marriage, following multiple cheating allegations.

"She's not sitting there thinking she still has a chance with Ashley, but their marriage and divorce still haunts her.

"It may be more than a decade later, but Cheryl still feels the odd pang of regret and wonders if things could have been different for them if they had done things differently back then. Sometimes she can’t believe how young they were, and how crazy life got.

"They were both guilty of putting their careers and egos first. No relationship could have survived the pressure.”

The source continues, “She just wishes they’d been able to separate their mad celebrity lifestyle from what was real between them. They could have grown up together, and she and Ash could now be living that fairytale, with the big family she always dreamed about.

"There are so many what-ifs when it comes to Ashley, and Cheryl’s never really laid them to rest. So, of course, hearing this news about him and Sharon – and their apparently perfect life – has brought it home.”

Cheryl, 38, and Ashley were one of the most high-profile showbiz couples of the noughties, marrying in a star- studded million-pound wedding in 2006.

But their romance came crashing down when he was accused of cheating with a hairdresser on a drunken night out, and more cheating allegations followed.

Cheryl later said that the “sadness, physical pain, sickness and fury was like I’d never experienced,” while Ashley expressed regret at his behaviour, recently admitting, “Did I make mistakes when I was younger? Of course, and I understand that now. I understand right from wrong,” adding that he was just a “kid” when he married the former Girls Aloud singer.

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Four years after their split, Ashley met Chez- alike Sharon while playing for Italian team Roma, and they now have two children together.

Last week, Ashley broke their happy news with an Insta-post of him down on bended knee, as Sharon confirmed it was the “easiest yes I’ve ever said”.

Meanwhile, Cheryl has struggled to find love, marrying French businessman Jean- Bernard Fernandez- Versini in July 2014, and divorcing him two years later. She moved on quickly with One Direction’s Liam Payne – with whom she has five-year-old son Bear – but they split in 2018. She’s since focused on being a mum, calling Bear the “biggest achievement in the whole of my life”.

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And we’re told it doesn’t help that Liam, 28, is also happily settled down with his girlfriend of three years, Maya Henry. “Cheryl would really love to find a relationship, someone to share everything with,” says the source. “So, when she looks at the wonderful life Ashley and Liam seem to have, of course it stings.”