I hadn’t realised quite how much I was sleepwalking through my life, or my marriage, until the day I woke up and knew I couldn’t do it anymore.
I had been with my husband for 18 years. To the outside world, we looked like we had the perfect marriage, the perfect life. We had lived in a wonderful, rambling, old house on the edge of a creek, a house filled with our blended family of six children (four mine, two his). We had an open-door policy, all our friends, all our children’s friends were welcome – there would be food, wine and fun.
But right around the time Covid-19 hit, things started to change. My children, the only ones left in the house, were leaving, and menopause was hitting. My career seemed to have hit the skids – after years of writing bestselling novels, suddenly my novels were no longer making much money, and given that I was the sole provider and breadwinner, I would go to sleep every night with the albatross of financial fear wrapped tightly around my neck.
Shorts
My husband had been made redundant back in 2011, and initially, I loved having him at home. He became the primary errand-runner, shopper, caretaker of the house, and of the children’s forgotten homework, driving them around town to activities and friend’s houses.
