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.
