The Tiger Moth Spirit

By Eleni Johnson

How do you cope when your love story ends?
After a destructive marriage, Eleni plans to give up on men, until she meets Andy, but as they embark on a new adventure in France, tragedy strikes.
Alone in a foreign country, Eleni navigates her way through grief, coming to realise that Andy’s unconditional love was a sticking plaster on unresolved childhood issues.
An honest and heart-warming account of love, loss and self-discovery, Eleni is forced to take a long, hard look at her life. On her journey she reflects on divorce and motherhood; the unspoken aspects of grief and the loss of identity.
Discovering new ways to cope, Eleni finds the courage to step across the bridge from her old life into a new one. Grief becomes a gift through a spiritual awareness she’d never had before, providing ways to overcome sadness and ways to look for the sunset in life.
This story serves as a reminder that love, resilience, and self-discovery can guide us through even the darkest times. 'The Tiger Moth Spirit' is not just a book; it is a beacon of hope and a testament to the strength of the human spirit.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eleni Johnson
• Release date: Dec 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215890608

Eleni Johnson

Eleni Johnson was born in the New Forest in Hampshire (UK). She is a freelance writer. She is passionate about writing and has been doing so, since she was a child, but has only just started publishing her fiction work. When she is not writing, she enjoys travelling with her two dogs, reading, photography and spending time with her family. She also likes cake!

Book preview

Chapter 1

Twenty-three years on, from the day I walked into Andy’s office, I find myself back here, living just a few miles away from the very place we first met. I have come full circle and wonder how I’ve arrived back at the beginning. So much happened in those years we were together; love, good times, family, loss, and even emigrating. All that history together and now it feels like a dream that never really happened. Is it a coincidence that I’m back where I started, or am I where I’m supposed to be? There is nothing in particular that drew me to this location; no friends or family nearby, and yet here I am, trying to make sense of my life now and waiting for the reason to be revealed to me one day.

If only I had walked into Andy’s office when I was eighteen rather than thirty-five, life could have been so very different, but perhaps we had lessons to learn before our paths crossed. Maybe fate intended it to be that way…

***

I was married at nineteen and divorced at twenty-two. It was a mistake, an escape from my childhood. I met him when I was seventeen and we worked in the greenhouses at Lord Rothschild’s Exbury Estate, famous for its abundance of rhododendrons. We started dating and eventually got engaged. After College, he went into the Navy and I went to live in Spain as an Au pair, to learn the language better. My idea was to become a holiday rep or a translator for the United Nations. Once there, I planned to call off my engagement, but when my fiancé came over to visit, I was on the verge of starvation. I had nothing to eat but bowls of cold, cooked cauliflower covered in olive oil and other remnants left in the fridge.

The children I looked after had gone to Seville for the summer with their grandmother. Their single mother had gone to the UK to get an abortion, something she couldn’t do in Spain, being a Catholic. She left me with no money to buy food and only a roof over my head. So, when my fiancé arrived, he fed me and I was grateful to see him, and after he left, I became homesick. A travel company there offered me a job, but I followed him back to England instead. My parents were away on their six-week annual holiday, leaving me with no choice but to stay with him. One thing led to another, and I never left, not wishing to go back home, anyway.

His godparents, devout Christians, tried to bribe him with money not to marry me. They thought I was too foreign with my olive skin tone, dark brown hair, and mixed race genes, despite being born in the south of England and my mother being English. In return, my family thought he was gay with his blue eyes, blonde hair and thick pursing lips, and was also against our union. I did sometimes wonder. There were occasions at our local steakhouse, where I’d have to fight off the cross-dressing waiter from kissing him. Then when said waiter did an after-hours striptease, false boobs and all, he seemed quite happy to watch.

We weren’t exactly a match made in heaven, but in true young people’s defiance, we thought we loved each other and went against our families, financing our own bargain basement wedding. It turned out he wasn’t gay after all. He had a fling with a beautiful fledgling that worked for him, who literally threw herself at him in front of me, with no shame, and his ego took over. So, three years after our marriage, we fought over furniture, but eventually parted as friends. Husband number one, done and dusted. Young and stupid - should have taken the job in Spain!

To my surprise, our divorce hit me hard. Having come from a twice broken home, I was adamant that I would not follow in my mother’s footsteps and here I was, already on my way. The feeling of failure weighed heavily upon me, as well as the ebbing and flowing of every other human emotion that existed. I consoled myself with meaningless sex with men, just to feel wanted and to ward off those painful feelings, and I buried myself in my job, working all hours to avoid my new empty flat.

I loved my job as an office manager for an electrical company. We were a fairly new branch of a national company, and all got on really well. We worked hard, but there was always banter going between the offices, always someone being teased and I had a tendency to mother everyone. I would often bring in goodies for us all, be it cream cakes or sherbet dib dabs, and I would laugh to myself as I watched grown men relive their childhood by sucking on lollies and dipping them into the fizzy powder.

I was the only female in the office, until I took on an assistant, but I liked it that way. The guys opened up to me and I was like an agony aunt for them despite my age, but I’d always felt more comfortable with men than women.

When a new contracts engineer, Callum, joined the office, I wondered if he would fit in. He was quiet and didn’t say much, which created a bit of an atmosphere at first, but eventually we won him round and he was soon winking at me through the adjoining office door and having the craic, giving his charming smile. He was the dark, broody type, but when he came out of his shell, he had a way with the ladies.

I was always the last one to leave the office at night, but Callum took it upon himself to be the gentleman and stay behind, stating, ‘You shouldn’t be left alone to lock up, it’s not right.’

It didn’t bother me. I only worked late because I lived alone and had nothing better to do. However, I was grateful that he was there the night my car wouldn’t start and he helped me to get it going. The next day, I bought him his own office mug as a thank you.

Later that week, he called me into the tearoom and I thought he wanted to vent about something work related or moan about his wife, as the others so often did. The tea room was usually where they grabbed me for a natter about such things.

‘You know I’ve got feelings for you, don’t you?’ he asked, taking me completely by surprise.

‘There was nothing in that mug I gave you,’ I blurted. ‘It was just a thank you. Everyone hates sharing their mugs and you didn’t have one, so I got you one.’ I didn’t want him to think I’d led him on. I suddenly panicked that while the rest of the office knew me, he perhaps thought there was more to my friendliness.

‘It’s not the mug,’ he said. ‘I like you and I feel we get on.’

‘But you’re married and I don’t do married men. My ex cheated on me, so I know what it’s like,’ I replied and awkwardly left the tearoom, but he’d put the idea into my head and I had to stop myself from going there. I liked him, but had never thought of him in that way.

On Fridays, we had an office ritual, where we all stopped off at the local pub to wind down on our way home. Callum often joined us and would eventually find his way over to me and we would chat about all sorts, his declaration forgotten on my part. It was during these occasions that we became friends and where he cleverly wore down my resolve with his charm and witty banter. I started to like him and there was definitely an attraction between us. He was nine years older than me, but I preferred older men.

‘My wife hasn’t loved me in a long time,’ he said one evening. ‘She’s such a cold fish. I slept with a woman at my old job a couple of years ago, just to be close to someone.’

I naively believed every word and felt sorry for him.

One Friday, after a particularly stressful week, we all hit the pub and stayed longer than usual, grateful the week was over. I had a few too many drinks, so Callum offered to drive me home. We’d had a jovial night, and I was in high spirits and in no hurry to return to my lonely flat. He’d been flirting with me and I was enjoying it, my guard down.

‘Do you want a coffee?’ I offered as he parked outside my flat. ‘It’s the least I can do as you’re fetching my car back in the morning.’

He accepted and as we entered my first-floor flat, I showed him around. It was like a Tardis inside, and when I left him looking at the view across town, I felt the sexual tension hanging heavily between us. While I stood in the kitchen spooning coffee into the mugs, Callum came up behind me and gently kissed the nape of my neck. I turned to face him, a little embarrassed and a little excited. He kissed me again, this time on the lips, and it quickly turned into something more passionate, and within seconds we were tearing at each other’s clothes where we stood in the kitchen.

After he left, I chided myself at first, but then justified my actions by the fact his wife wasn’t very nice to him. Even as we continued our affair, I had no intention of breaking them up. I wasn’t ready to get involved again, but enjoyed the moments we shared whenever he was free; it suited me. I didn’t put any pressure on him for more, nor ask him to leave his wife. Therefore, it came as a shock, when there was a knock on my door late one night and Callum was standing there. ‘She asked me if I still loved her and I said no, so she kicked me out,’ he said.

I could see the pain on his face, so I didn’t remark that I thought his wife didn’t love him either. Callum took it as read that he could move in with me and I didn’t have the heart to say no. He looked like a lost little boy standing there on my doorstep. He’d walked away with just one black bag of his belongings and told me he couldn’t afford a hotel.

Our relationship became more intense. We went on little jaunts all over, including a trip to Jersey, enjoying the newness of it all. He told me he loved me and I grew used to having him around. I maxed out my credit card to buy him clothes and the things he needed, after he explained that all his wages went on their mortgage.

He never paid me back, and six weeks later he looked at me distraught and said, ‘There’s no easy way to say this, but I’m going back to her.’

‘What the hell! Why?’

‘She needs me.’

‘I need you.’

‘I’m sorry, I just can’t do this,’ he said and went into the bedroom, refusing to engage further.

This made me furious, hurt beyond belief, and so incensed that I beat at his back in desperation as I cried. I couldn’t make sense of it and felt used. I was sick of people in my life saying they loved me, but not behaving like they did. Something snapped, and I would not let it go. I followed him round the room as he packed his things, begging him not to go and grabbing his clothes so he couldn’t pack them, hoping that would stop him. I totally humiliated myself, and in the end he became annoyed and slammed out of the door, leaving some of his things behind.

Angry, I ran into the kitchen and grabbed the scissors and cut up the clothes he’d left behind, then I picked up a glass ornament he’d bought me on one of our trips and threw it against the wall, and as the pieces fell to the floor, so did I. I howled for a while, but when I came to and calmed down, I realised he wasn’t mine in the first place. I’d been a fool to fall for his lies, and this was my punishment for getting involved with him. I went to bed and lay there for the entire weekend, my carpet littered with screwed up tissues.

To make matters even worse, when I arrived at work on Monday, Head Office suspended me for getting involved with a colleague and yet Callum hadn’t been. They told me relationships at work were not allowed. I wasn’t aware of that rule, and besides, we’d been discreet and it had never affected our work. I couldn’t believe he would risk losing his job by saying something, and I wondered if it was his wife’s revenge. It was so unfair, but that was what it was like for women in those days. I was the harlot and there was no way the man could be at fault. My colleagues were upset and tried to console me, but I was fuming after all the hours I had put into that place, so I went to my union. I wasn’t going to wait for the company to decide on my fate, and the union lapped it up. They negotiated a pay deal for me, but I still lost the job I loved and I was devastated, while Callum was sitting pretty. It was sexist and infuriating.

I spent days moping in bed and only mustered the energy to go for interviews and then straight back to bed, until I secured another role as an office manager for an American company. It kept me busy and I tried to move on, but Callum niggled at the back of my mind. I hadn’t intended to fall for him, but now he had a grip on my heart and when I heard, a few months later, that he was getting divorced, I hoped he would come back to me, but he didn’t. I made every effort to put it behind me. I wasn’t going to go and beg him again, but my feelings kept swaying between anger and love and I couldn’t reach the comfort of indifference. Some days it would eat away at me, so I put all my attention into my new job as I’d done after my divorce. Employers were certainly getting their money’s worth out of me. No wonder I kept getting job offers.

Two years later, I finally plucked up the courage to go out with someone else, a nice submarine officer. One night while we were out, I bumped into Callum and old feelings bubbled back to the surface. We were polite and only chatted briefly on my way to the Ladies, but I was glad I was dressed in high heels and a red mini skirt, so he could see what he was missing. I was only average height, but had a decent set of legs on my slim frame, and he was a sucker for legs.

As it turned out, my outfit had clearly done the trick, because a few days later, Callum made an unannounced visit to my office. I was all flustered; I didn’t think he knew where I worked.

‘Can we talk?’ he asked.

‘Not now, I’m working.’

‘What about coffee in your lunch break? I can meet you outside?’

‘One o’clock,’ I said and wondered why I’d agreed to it. I wanted to go and didn’t want to go at the same time.

After I met with him, we bought our coffees and sat outside on a bench and he didn’t beat about the bush.

‘Eleni, will you marry me?’ It came from nowhere, and I was quite taken aback.

‘I beg your pardon? You just rock up after all this time and expect me to marry you? You dumped me, remember? And I know you divorced ages ago,’ I said, glaring at him and feeling a little shocked.

‘I’m sorry. I had to go back for the boy and she was having a lot of problems with the eldest. He’d been in trouble with the police.’ He always referred to his son as the boy, and never by name. ‘Our marriage was over before I met you, but I felt guilty for leaving him. In the end, she couldn’t hack me being there, and after the divorce, I just needed to get my head straight.’

‘And that took you two years? If we hadn’t bumped into each other, would you have ever contacted me?’

‘I don’t know, but when I saw you again, I realised I still love you.’ He seemed nervous and genuine and my ability to see other points of view was a curse sometimes.

‘I need time to think,’ I said, my head spinning. I’d just started to like my submariner, although there was no spark like Callum and I had, but he was a genuinely nice guy. ‘I want kids one day,’ I added, ‘and I don’t want the same arrangement that you had with your ex, so it would never work.’

Callum hadn’t wanted a child with his wife, happy enough with his step-son and so when she insisted on having one together, he reluctantly agreed as long as she looked after it. I wanted my children to be loved by both parents and that was a deal breaker for me.

‘We will have kids, when the time is right, I promise,’ he said and told me he was going away on a course for a week.

‘I’ll give you my answer when you’re back then.’ My head was screaming no, but that lost little boy in him always caught my heart and he seemed genuinely cut up for hurting me. He was also free now and didn’t belong to somebody else. I had a lot to think about.

Chapter 2

My foolish heart won over, and I agreed to get married. This time, my family accepted husband number two, and I got on famously with his parents and siblings. Our wedding, although self-funded again, was a nicer occasion. By then I’d bought myself a house and Callum moved in with me. He was still working at my old office and that was awkward at times, but we had to leave that in the past. Besides, I was enjoying my new job and earning more money.

We socialised a lot and had fun for a while. We both worked long hours, and it didn’t bother me at first that I had to cook each night and spend my weekends cleaning the house, while he flopped in front of the telly. He would buy me short skirts and other clothing that he liked to see me in, and then rip off later, which made me feel sexy and special, and we were happy.

As time went on, our honeymoon period faded and with his feet firmly tucked under the table, his mask began to slip and the real Callum came out to play with his insecurities and jealousy. It started off subtly with questioning things I did. Why did it take three hours to have a meal with my workmates? What could we possibly talk about for three hours? Where was I really? Or, why don’t you say my name? Is it because you’re seeing other men and don’t want to get mixed up? Why are you talking to him and why are you putting on make-up? Who’s that for? It came to the point, where I daren’t speak to anyone, especially men, for fear of him creating a scene and yet when one of his clients made a lewd comment and put his hand where he shouldn’t and I told Callum, he did nothing.

As a result, the emotional rollercoaster ride began. When he knew he’d pushed his luck, he turned on the charm for a few weeks and I’d be grateful to have the man I loved back. When he was Dr Jekyll, he was good to be around, but when he was Mr Hyde, life was difficult. I could walk out of the room having had a joke with him and walk back in to find he’d changed as quick as the flick of a switch. He couldn’t flick back into good mode as easily and often filled the house with broody silences for as long as a week. I constantly had to justify everything I did and prove my love to him. My personality shrunk. I was a caged bird, allowed out to fly only on the occasions my master let me.

Having a job helped. It was the only place I could be myself and the reason I probably put up with it for so long. We had no ties holding us together, apart from the fact I loved him and I believed the lost little boy inside him somewhere loved me, too. However, there must have come a point when he also realised that I could just walk away and said to me one day, ‘We should have kids. I think it will make you happy.’ I was twenty-nine by then and my biological clock was ticking. I knew I wanted kids, but actually making the decision to have them was scary.

‘That’s no reason to have kids and I’ve told you before, you have to want them too and to play a part in their upbringing.’

‘I do want them,’ he said. ‘The time is right and I will do my bit.’

His behaviour improved for a while after that and he wooed me into a false sense of security and during a fun night, he started talking baby names and getting mushy, so I finally agreed to try for a family.

I was eighteen weeks into the pregnancy of our first baby, when I was chatting to his sister and started spotting. ‘Is that normal?’ I whispered to her, and she told me to get checked out.

We went to the hospital for a scan and it wasn’t normal; I had miscarried. While I sat on the bed waiting for them to remove the foetus, I kept asking the nurses, ‘Are you sure? I felt it move yesterday.’

I didn’t want them to be making a mistake. I didn’t want to lose my baby. I’d already started filling the shelves with rabbit books and colourful bedtime stories, but they were sure. By the time they finished with me, I’d gone into hospital with a baby and had come out with nothing but painful piles and a sadness for the child that had already felt part of me, yet I’d never got the chance to meet.

Callum seemed genuinely as upset as me, and for the first time in our marriage, he told me to put my feet up and cooked us a meal. Seeing other parents with babies became significant after that, and we were desperate to try for another, but waited an endless six months as advised, before doing so. After a few monthly disappointments, I eventually fell pregnant again.

One day, a few months into the pregnancy, Callum’s boss gave him a written warning for something he felt wasn’t his fault, and he came home furious.

‘They can stuff their job!’

‘You can’t quit,’ I said. ‘We can’t afford it, not with a baby on the way.’ I conceded it was unfair, as they had given him a bad contract to turn around and he couldn’t. ‘Can’t you wait ‘til you find another one first?’

He agreed to wait, but the next day he totally ignored me and quit, anyway.

‘Nobody is going to tell me I’m rubbish at my job,’ he informed me.

Eventually, he found another job, but it was in the Midlands, and so we had to move away from our hometown and family where we’d lived all our lives. I was suffering from depression after my miscarriage and the nearer we came to the birth, the worse I felt, because there was more to lose, and as we drove up to the Midlands, I realised I was going to be isolated from all my friends.

‘Look at this place, it’s a shithole,’ I said with dismay, as I looked around. We would be living in an industrial dump. It was very different from the beautiful New Forest we had left behind, and my child would have no family nearby. I grew up with very little family and didn’t want that for my kids. ‘I don’t want to live here,’ I said and burst into tears.

‘You’ve ruined my life!’ he shouted back at me, and we sat in silence for the rest of the journey, as I wondered how I had done that.

That December, our daughter Molly was born. She was a healthy bundle of joy and I felt really happy for the first time in a long while, relieved that she had finally made it into this world. Initially, Callum was interested and seemed to love her. He didn’t mind holding her to his chest while she napped and he watched telly. He did very little in the way of practical duties, but all I wanted was for him to love her and spend time with her.

Once the new baby euphoria died down and I was well and truly dependent upon Callum, trapped with nowhere to go and no support, he switched the jealousy and control back on. For months, he’d been going to our local pub several times a week to play darts, while I’d been stuck at home throughout my pregnancy, and now tied to a baby. So when a neighbour came and asked me if I wanted to join them for a girl’s pizza night, I didn’t want to leave Molly, but she persuaded me it wasn’t far and would do me good, and I agreed to go. Callum wasn’t happy that I was making friends and gave me the silent treatment for a week before I went.

On the night in question, I put on a black leather skirt, which was below the knee, and a nondescript top. I was a mother now and felt the short skirts I used to wear weren’t appropriate.

‘Why are you going out dressed like a tart?’ he said, but I didn’t bite.

I was determined to have a night off. I was exhausted. Molly wasn’t sleeping well, because I was struggling to breastfeed her. The health visitor had told me to put her on a formula for hungry babies, which upset her stomach. It was about time he had a night with her, although I’d intended to be back in time for her next feed.

I had an enjoyable meal, despite feeling mum-guilt for going, and when I turned the key in the door upon my return, he had locked me out. He ranted and raved incoherent abuse at me from the window and wouldn’t let me in to feed Molly. I was upset at being barred from my baby. My neighbour let me stay at her house, and while we sat having coffee trying to make sense of his logic, there was a boom on the door and Callum was screaming at me, ‘Why are you in there?’

‘Because you fuckin’ locked me out!’

It was embarrassing, and after a lot of shouting, he relented to let me back home to feed Molly. When he was in a jealous rage, there was no logic to it and no reasoning with him, and he gave me the silent treatment for another week. It was my punishment and meant to teach me that going out wasn’t worth the effort. I was too ashamed to face the neighbours, anyway.

When Molly was around three months old, Callum came home unexpectedly one afternoon.

‘You’re early?’

‘I’ve just been made redundant.’

This time he lost his job for being bloody minded, which I felt was entirely his fault. They hadn’t let him do the job they’d promised, which was fair enough, but he’d been childish about it, and so they decided it wasn’t working. As a result, we found ourselves back in the same boat as we were a year earlier.

After a few worrying weeks, he found a job with his old company, but 150 miles further north, and they made him earn his keep and prove himself after having quit before. We didn’t want to move again in case it didn’t last, so he worked away all week and came home at weekends. It was an immense strain on our finances, as the cost of his accommodation was equal to having two mortgages, plus he was terrible with money and we were skint all the time.

Initially, it was great when he came home on weekends. We would jump straight into bed and have exciting sex, because we missed each other. Then one night, as we lay in bed, with Molly in between us and as he was holding her tiny hand, he surprised me again.

‘Let’s have a brother or sister for Molly?’

Caught up in my love for our bundle of joy and our exciting catch-ups, I agreed, and we tried for a second child, wanting them close together as I was over thirty by then.

As the months passed, being pregnant and contending with a toddler on my own was hard. There was nobody to sound off to at the end of the day, or to give me a five-minute breather and, as my pregnancy progressed, I struggled to cope sometimes, but I had no choice. I worried how I was going to manage when I had the two of them, but we’d made no plans about our living situation.

‘I’m hoping they’ll start paying for my accommodation soon,’ said Callum when I questioned it. ‘They keep saying they will look at it.’ If they did, it would at least help with our finances, but it wouldn’t help me look after two babies.

After a while, when he came home on a Friday and greeted me, Molly would scream and wonder who this man was touching her Mummy, because all week it had been just me and her dancing in the kitchen and doing everything together. As I became more independent and used to a routine of coping alone, the transition back to little wifey was proving more difficult. Callum became distant too, and eventually he wouldn’t touch me.

‘I don’t like fat women,’ he said, when I asked him why, but it hadn’t bothered him before. Some marriages are based on sex and others on friendship. Ours was the former, and I wondered if he was going off me, especially as he was reluctant to commit to moving nearer to his work.

Then one weekend, I took a strange phone call from a woman whose name I’d never heard of, and Callum had never mentioned before. I always took an interest in his job; we talked in detail about it and so I knew most of his work colleagues by name at least.

‘He’s not home yet,’ I said. ‘Can I take a message?’

‘It’s Siobhan. Just tell him I’m back,’ she said.

‘Siobhan from?’ I asked, but she wouldn’t give me a company name or any further information. ‘Just tell him,’ she reiterated and hung up.

When I mentioned the name to Callum, he played dumb and denied knowing her. He even pretended that he couldn’t pronounce her name, and I just knew by his reaction that he was lying. We were ex-directory, and she had our home phone number. Of course he knew her, and then it dawned on me that he might be having an affair. It all suddenly made sense, his distance and not touching me, but I couldn’t prove it. My mother had always said to me, jealous men are usually the ones being unfaithful. Her words popped into my head, but five days a week I was as good as a single mum and in no position to upset the apple cart, so I didn’t ask him; he’d only deny it anyway or twist it round to me. I stuffed my feelings down into my hurt box with everything else I’d packed in there over the years, and I never brought it up again, because an affair was the least of our problems. I think, too, that some part of me felt I deserved it for getting involved with him when he was married. It was my penance.

As March arrived, so did our new baby boy, Sam. He was born within half an hour of my waters breaking.

‘Hurry, I don’t think I can hang on. This baby’s going to come in the car,’ I screamed between contractions, as Callum drove me to the hospital.

There was no time for pain relief, so it was a natural birth and my body shook with shock. The nurse handed me a chocolate bar and a sweet tea to stop me shaking, before I could hold him, and when I did and saw the size of his feet, I thought I’d given birth to a rabbit. He never grew into his feet, and his shoes were a constant trip hazard in the house. Molly adored him and mothered him, wiping his dribbles and cuddling him, but Callum wasn’t as involved this time, because he was never home.

For two more years I coped alone, not only with my two toddlers, fourteen months between them, but I childminded another, so I could afford to buy what they needed, due to our financial situation. Sometimes it was all too much, especially when they were both crying in the night, and I’d sit with them and cry too. The working away had taken its toll on us. Callum refused to come home mid-week, unless he was due to play in the darts tournament, never for us or even for their birthdays. Despite his jealousy, he seemed okay with the arrangement and still wouldn’t commit to moving. I began to resent him, stuffing my feelings away. It was the only way I could survive, but after three stressful years of it, I’d had enough.

‘This isn’t working. I may as well go back home. There’s no point in being married,’ I said. ‘At least I have friends and family there.’ Consequently, Callum agreed we could move nearer his job and try to save our marriage.

Molly was three by then and Sam two. Neither had spent much time with their dad since their birth and it took some time to settle into a proper routine with all of us together. For a while it worked and we went out for family picnics and took the kids to see the animals or into the Yorkshire Dales, but Callum soon slipped back into the atmospheres and jealousy. I found it even more difficult to cope with than before. Perhaps because I’d had less of it during the past three years, while he wasn’t around. Now I was having to tread on eggshells again, and I was fed up with the sneery inquisitions as to why I’d bought new underwear, or more to the point, who I’d bought it for, or why had I smiled at the postman. Only this time, we had Molly and Sam to consider and I was trying desperately not to create a scene or have a row in front of them.

I struggled back on the rollercoaster for another three years, doing my best to keep my family together. Again, it made it difficult to have friends. People thought I was stuck up because I turned down invitations, not knowing that it wasn’t worth the aggravation I received at home. I devoted all my time to Molly and Sam, who were my world. I’d teach them things and play with them; take them on play dates and to toddler groups. We did dressing-up and sand pits and paddling pools and made stuff. We went to see the animals and did all the things I wished my parents had had the time to do with me. Then, before I could blink, Molly was starting