Now we are Ex

And so, dear reader, I didn’t marry him.  Or rather, he didn’t marry me.  He asked twice, and I said yes both times, and we had talked about it enough for me to know that actually, he would rather not spend the money and be the centre of attention, and anyway, what did the piece of paper matter?  He’d been there and done that, and didn’t particularly want to do it again.  Well, no problem, really, although I would have liked a massive, all weekend party, with marquee and buffet and barbeque and dancing, and a bouncy castle and piñata for the children.   Perhaps as a house warming, in summer when we’d got the hay in and the house had been renovated and decorated.  In my dreams.  And now that’s where it will stay.

We had gutted the farmhouse, intending to renovate and extend to create a place where, potentially, the grandchildren would come for magical holidays. Then as the recession started to bite, work on the house stopped, as neither of us were earning much and felt insecure eating up our savings on the project without some sort of consistent income.

Then Ex Partner (XP) decided to move on.  He wanted to do something else, somewhere else, and with someone else.  He's now been seeing his Current Girlfriend (CG) for just over a year. 
Initially, when he told me that he was having an ‘affair’, I knew that if he was telling me about it, it was serious.  However, he had always let me know that I wasn’t the complete package. (Charming, thank you, but then nobody's perfect, least of all me!)  I reasoned that if I loved him, then why shouldn’t someone else?  Providing I was secure here and our relationship continued, then I would be okay sharing him.  He said he would not be forced to choose between us, but when CG made it clear that she could not share him and would end the relationship, he made his choice – he chose her.

I know in my heart that it hadn’t been the healthiest of relationships for a while, but I’d always told myself that I love him and despite some serious arguments, didn’t truly consider leaving him.  Could I, would I ever find someone else who would put up with my foibles?  Despite my eroded self confidence, I don’t think of XP as a paragon of virtue either.  However, whereas I accept and tolerate our differences, viewing them as complementary, it’s clear now that he perceives them as irresolvable incompatibilities.


I always believed that things will work out for the best if you let them.  As one door closes, another opens.   What goes around comes around.  The trick is to apply your beliefs to yourself, to practise what you preach, really believe it. 

Time for me to move on, too.

But first, we have a farm to put in order and sell.  With the change of lifestyle, we will also need new jobs to be able to support ourselves.

Interesting times lie ahead ....