At this point...

At this point you might be wondering why I am married to a man I don’t love. I mean, did I ever love him? Did I marry him for money? Did I fall out of love with him for a reason? Why stay with him if I don’t love him?

There really are so many questions to answer and it’s hard when you start writing about it because one thing leads to another and another and another and before you know it, nothing makes sense anymore and then you start to doubt your own legitimate reasons for not loving a man who, generally, is OK.

In brief, I got together with Harry when I was 20 and he was 36. He was my friend’s older brother - my friend being Lydia who I met when I was 14 and she was 16. Harry wasn’t on the scene much in those days, he was off working in the Middle East and I knew him only from family photos that graced Lydia’s house and one family party when I was 15 and he flew back to do his duty. He was all blue eyes and innocent charm, I can remember thinking that even then but I certainly don’t recall thinking anything other than that. No, I was too busy eying up her cousin’s mate from London who was all brown eyes and arrogance.

Anyway, when I was 20 I went to another family party and Harry was there again, only this time I’d been pushed around and treated like shit by several boyfriends – various eye colours, but all arrogant – and I now fancied myself as someone destined for better. My eyes fell on Harry from a new slant. He spoke with a nice accent due to his impeccable upbringing, travelled extensively (a huge draw to me as I had notions of travel but had failed to so far make it out of various bedsits and studio flats in my home town) and well, his blue eyes and innocent charm had become that much more appealing to me after realising that arrogant men, although sexy in the beginning, are always bastards in the end.

He saw a 20-year-old girl with nice tits, a determined manner and sadly (I believe now) his over-consumption of beer that night of the party had knocked his senses somewhat and failed to remind him that I was in fact his sister’s friend, a lot younger and therefore – surely morally out of bounds? But no, the beer talked and coupled with my pushiness and belief that I was being assertive and in control, one thing led to another and in the morning he paid for my taxi home. Maybe he felt trapped after that? Maybe he wishes he hadn’t had so many beers to cloud his normally rational ways? Maybe he saw me as a mistake but one that he would now have to stand by? Because well, after a bit of cajoling on my side to make it into more than a fling “of course we have things in common Harry! Just because I am young, it doesn’t matter!” five years later and we were married and ten years later now it’s me who feels trapped. Irony.

Problem is his sister is still my best friend. His best friend’s wife confides in me at every turn, I love his parents more than my own and to walk away from this relationship, well it wouldn’t just be us. It would be everything. My entire world.