Thursday 27 September 2007

Internet Dating - a Marital Interlude

All the time I had been separated I tried to see my daughter as much as I possibly could.  Invariably this involved seeing my ex as well.  Since I had moved from France to the Isle of Man these visits were pretty much every other weekend or sometimes every weekend.  I had stopped internet dating for a while and seen a couple of women in the real world.  

I kept thinking 'what if we could make it work' with my ex and eventually I popped the question.  My ex didn't exactly jump at the chance, but she didn't dismiss it either.  To cut a short story shorter, we got back together for a year.  It was great being so close to my daughter as she was growing up so fast.  My ex and I had made a pact that we'd do more things together.  This worked well for a couple of months and then there always seemed to be a reason for not doing things together and the inevitable happened again.

I remember standing at the back door having a smoke one evening.  We were discussing our future and she said the immortal words 'this isn't working; what you're looking for is a girlfriend and what I'm looking for is a husband'.  Various people I have told this to have taken it different ways, but the way I took it was that in her mind, upon marriage, roles changed and her perception of what happened was that the fun disappeared and the work began (I had a different view, strangely enough).  Anyway, all of a sudden it felt like a massive weight had been lifted off my shoulders.  We agreed to separate there and then, although I stayed in the house for a further three months.  This final separation was in September 2007.