I was talking to my boss over lunch today (he is a lovely guy and we do talk a little about our private lives).

I said that I often missed my husband. I miss him all the time and none of the time. He understood that paradox.

“But it wasn’t healthy, though, was it?” he asked.

It wasn’t. And we had been living separate lives for several years.

We hadn’t slept with each other for years. We rarely ate together, only at the weekend for a Chinese takeaway that I’d grown to hate. We didn’t go anywhere together. He watched TV reality shows I preferred to read. We never went out. He never came back to Bristol to see my dad, my brother, and nephews.

That last one was upsetting.

Without him fostering his own relationship with my family, he wasn’t going to have one if ever we split.

I am thinking of my friend, Patriculus, who is still friends with his exes – and their families. It can happen. It should be possible.

After lunch I was still thinking – I have had a few sexual encounters since our separation, some I’ve enjoyed, some I haven’t – and recently I have lost interest in them. They feel like too much work for not enough payoff (the one exception being Funiculosus).

I think my real need was to be held – emotionally and physically.

That’s what was missing for so long.

That’s what I craved then.

And I crave it now.