I was in heaven. Hog heaven…with cheese on top. He was away for 5 weeks in South America snowboarding, which meant that technically, I was on holiday from him.

It was a few days into my respite when I began to appreciate what feeling good felt like; I wasn’t tired all the time, being talked at, reminded of my many faults or told how amazing and clever he was. I felt relaxed and at peace for the first time in over a decade. The fact that I felt so much better without him suggested that I was tethered to someone that I couldn’t actually stand.
Two and a half weeks had passed when my peaceful holiday at home was interrupted by a 3am phone call -from him. There had been an armed robbery at the hostel where he was staying and although he had escaped injury he was understandably shaken up by the whole course of events.
I listened to the story, made soothing reassuring responses and empathised as I was expected too, while the whole time the sentence, DAMN they missed! was like a litany on loop, playing inside my head. I then spent the next twenty minutes trying to convince him that he should stay and carry on with his vacation…without success…bitch.