Chapter 1: Be careful what you wish for.
It was March 2011, and I was on my way to Gatwick airport. With tense knuckles on the steering wheel, I found it hard to navigate the numerous roundabouts while concentrating on the directions coming out of the satnav. The device’s crisp clear tones wasn’t the only voice I was listening to.
On BBC Radio 2, Jeremy Vine was talking about how many people were returning to their first love after decades apart, reuniting with the person they fell hopelessly in love with in their teens or early twenties. ‘Has this happened to you?’ he asked. ‘Me!’ I screamed joyfully at the radio. ‘It is happening right now to ME.’ I wanted to call the radio. I wanted to share the most romantic story I believed they would ever broadcast, but no matter how much my fingers were itching to dial the number and call in, I couldn’t; I didn’t have time to share my utter joy.
Instead, I pelted down the A272, tense with butterflies, anticipation, and pure, genuine, unadulterated love. I had a plane to catch and a piece of missing history to rewrite. I was on my way to Rome to meet up with the one person I had loved more than life itself nearly twenty years previously. This wasn’t a whim or a quick bunk-up; this was the person I was always supposed to have been with—The One. Had I known then what the next ten years would bring, I would have double-backed at the next roundabout and hightailed it home.
Bloody, bloody hindsight, always late to the party.
This would be my once-upon-a-time, the fairytale we all dream of. The gorgeous, laid-back Prince Charming who had been mine, and then he wasn’t, had once again come charging back into my life as I had always hoped but never expected.
Initially, we fall for the love or the ‘feels’ as the younger lot would probably call it. That head-over-heels-sure feeling that they are the right one for you. That original love story everyone craves you know the one – a ‘set in the stars destiny’ ‘meant to be’ tale of romantic, heart-stoppingly beautiful love. The kind where you forget to eat and moon around, behaving like a total moron only prettier, sparklier, ditzier, but you can forgive yourself because you have found your soulmate.
We want all that romance with a dose of reality to bring the happy pink heart-shaped balloon back down to earth again and maybe even deflate or burst. Then we root for it to be mended and float merrily on its way. We are addicted and gripped by films, TV series and even real-life stories where hard-won love plays out, cheering for the hero or heroine to overcome all the obstacles life places in their path just so we can bask in their deeper, more meaningful, happy-ever-after.
Of course, there are ups and downs; we expect them because that is the structure on which strength and endurance are built. All solid relationships and friendships are like that. It takes work, compromise, more work and then you can feel the benefits of something grounded in firm foundations. Everything else rests on the hope that the other person will want to meet you in the middle, will want what is best for you, will want that you work together for a lovely future, having each other’s back. It helps if you have a great rapport with family members, friends, and even work colleagues, but on paring it back, the bottom line is it’s just the two of you, so you want to make sure they are the right one.
This is all well and good if you are both on that same track, but while there may be a general belief that love changes everything, I’m afraid I have disappointing news for you—it doesn’t. Sadly, I can say that with some authority.
My misguided notion of a healthy, happy relationship was based on the notion that whatever happened, you could always rely on the other person. It was less about money or where or how you lived and more about caring how your better (or worse?) half felt. Doing whatever you could to make them happy, no matter how small, silly or ridiculous, your role was to make the other person feel special with whatever means available. They become your priority, not excluding all others, but in the general shopping list of life, they are pretty much at the top: considered, prioritised and unique to you.
Unfortunately, nothing in this world can prepare you for the utter loneliness and misery of fighting to save a marriage all by yourself.
Parasitical; of, or pertaining to, having the characteristics of a parasite; leechlike or freeloading.
I used to say that I knew what true love was because if he was in one room and I was in the other, I would miss him. Now, sadly, I couldn’t pick out love from a heart-shaped lineup, but I am all too familiar with loneliness and can recognise it in a relationship. It’s the same as wearing an invisibility cloak – it doesn’t matter what you do, say, how you dress, or how hard you try – you simply aren’t there.
You don’t matter.
This isn’t the story I wanted or expected to write, but it needs to be told, to help me work through something I still cannot believe I allowed to happen, especially to someone like me.
