The women behind the man who shaped the nation of South Africa Mandela celebrates his 86th birthday with his wife Graca Machel, left, and his ex -wife Winnie Madikizela in his rural home town of Qunu. Nelson Mandela was a hard man to love. Throughout his life, the women he loved struggled to separate the man from the legend. For Mandela, too, there was a lifelong search for someone who could embrace both the mortal and the saint. His first wife, Evelyn Mase, loved the husband but rejected the activist. His second, Winnie, shared his politics but not his values, and barely knew the man to whom she was married for so long. Mandela was well into his 70s when he met his soulmate, Graca Machel, lifting a lifelong loneliness. Mandela's first love was Mase, a quiet, pretty nursing student that he met through her activist brother. They married, set up house in Soweto, and had four children. Mandela and his first wife Evelyn Mase at a wedding of Walter and Albertina Sisulu in 1944. As his interest in politics grew, his wife's diminished. She became increasingly passionate about religion, and demanded her husband choose between his wife and the African National Congress. "When I would tell her that I was serving the nation, she would reply that serving God was above serving the nation," he wrote in his autobiography. They separated in the late 1950s. Mandela found the political passion Evelyn lacked in Winnie Mandela, a divisive woman known by some South Africans as the mother of the nation, and by others as an African Eva Peron. He knew nothing of her fiery spirit when he first spotted the pretty social worker, who was almost 20 years his junior, at a Soweto bus stop, but when he went into hiding and then to jail after just two years of marriage, Winnie became his representative on the outside - the brave, outspoken wife who endured torment after torment from the South African authorities. She shared his passion for the fight against apartheid, but showed none of his grace. She was later revealed to have committed a suite of sins, including corruption, fraud and involvement in the kidnapping of a 14-year-old boy. This photograph was taken at the wedding of Nelson Mandela and Winnie in 1957. The world watched as Winnie greeted Mandela as he was released from prison in 1990, but after almost three difficult decades apart, they were strangers to each other. "Just as I am convinced that my wife's life while I was in prison was more difficult than mine, my own return was more difficult for her than it was for me," Mandela wrote. In 1996 he asked for a divorce, saying Winnie was having an affair with a young man when he was released and shunned him at home. But in his third wife, Graca Machel, Mandela met his soulmate. "I'm in love with a remarkable lady," he said. I don't regret the reverses and setbacks because late in my life I am blooming like a flower, because of the love and support she has given me. Machel was already one of Africa's most admired leaders. She was a former guerilla whose freedom fighter husband, Samora Machel, became the first president of an independent Mozambique. She was education minister in his government. When her husband died in a plane crash in 1986, which many suspected was the work of the South African apartheid regime, she was described as an African Jacqueline Kennedy. Early in her relationship with Mandela, she struggled to reconcile the man with the legend. There was a sort of conflict between the man I loved and the myth ... I couldn't figure out how the two would go together. People may say my husband is a saint. But ... to me, he is just a human being who is simple and gentle. Mandela said Machel saved him. She said their relationship eased the pain they both suffered during their lives. "It's so sweet and so complete and so natural," she said. We don't take it for granted. We know what it's like to be without. Mandela and his wife Graca Machel. Mandela's first love was Mase, a quiet, pretty nursing student that me met through her activist brother. He knew nothing of her fiery spirit when he first spotted the pretty social worker, who was almost 20 years his junior, at a Soweto bus stop, but when he went into hiding and then to jail after just two years of marriage, Winnie became his representative on the outside - the brave, outspoken, wife who endured torment after torment from the South African authorities. Mandela and wife Graca. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, left, and Albertina Sisulu attend the funeral service of Nelson Mandela's first wife Evelyn Mase in Johannesburg in 2004. She married a man who soon left her; that man became a myth; and then that myth returned home and proved to be just a man after all. In 1996 he asked for a divorce, saying Winnie was having an affair with a young man when he was released, shunned him at home and only showed affection at public functions, which he found "embarrassing." In her middle years, she has been a passionate advocate for human rights, child welfare and the poor, and once rejected entreaties to run for the secretary-general of the United Nations. There was assort of conflict between the man I loved and the myth ... I couldn't figure out how the two would go together. Machel kept a vigil at Mandela's bedside as his health failed. Today, her sorrow must be great, but so is her gratitude. When we married, we didn't know we'd be given 10 years together. We have been very lucky.