could earn for us as a family; or that me feeling more complete as a person would have a knock-on positive effect on our marriage. In fact sometimes I think my possible self-development threatened him. At the mere suggestion of me spending money, on anything, he would say ,
‘Well, if you’ve got enough money to do that we could spend it on—’
And then there would always be a ‘something’ for the house, the car, his hobbies. Once I gave up a place on a Reiki course so he could buy a pet snake and a games console, both apparently for our son, neither of which our son has ever played with; the Reiki course would have qualified me to teach, providing a valuable second income for our family .
Even if we were trying to arrange something nice, like booking a family holiday, most of the things I wanted to do didn’t interest him. No matter how passionate I was about a place or country he would say no. And when you are married at some point you get tired of battling, tired of fighting, tired of trying to maintain certain boundaries. So you give in, you agree, you give up. I was married from 22 years old to 30. This is the first time in my adult life I can really identify my own wants and needs and then, with a lot of hard work and planning, start to pursue the things, the longings sitting deep in my soul that are not connected to anyone but me. I’ve never been so excited about my future .
coffee shop | spitalfields market | london
Good God! I had awakened the beast. It wasn’t just that Leah had a lot to say. It was that she wanted to say it all at once, and she wanted to say it all to me. Mostly because I am one of her best friends, but also because I had put a key in a previously unused lock and the door had exploded wide open. If we were in an American action film Nicholas Cage would have been standing by that door of love-lost dreams putting Semtex on the lock, frame and anything else in the surrounding door area. Leah was finally free.
‘So I’ve been working through my list of love-stolendreams,’ Leah said, extracting an enormous phonebook-sized document out of her handbag. ‘And I think that I’m making good progress. I’ve completed the Reiki course, as you know, and, Henry, Henry, put that down!’ Henry, Leah’s son, had her iPhone in his mouth. ‘And I absolutely loved it, box ticked.’ She ticked an imaginary box in the air. So did Henry. ‘And I’ve got some other love-stolen dreams organised. There’s a lot to get through,’ she said, patting the gigantic document that was in fact her handwritten list of love-stolen dreams. ‘But I thought it would be nice to understand why I’d let myself get to a place where I was manically dribbling into my porridge, staring at my ex-husband across the kitchen and wanting to throw Petits Filous Frubes at his head. I mean, I wasn’t always a passive-aggressive downtrodden wife.’ She was more aggressive than passive but it wasn’t the moment. ‘So I’ve decided to do a bit of alternative research, which means that if you do that you won’t have a brownie, I told you, Henry, behave or no brownie, so you are going to have to be pretty open-minded when I tell you my idea.’
‘I am not here to judge. I am here to take back what love stole.’ This has been my mantra since the early shock of Mary’s mechanical revelations.
‘Well, it was my Reiki teacher’s idea really. She thought one way to better understand the obstacles and mistakes of this life would be to understand the obstacles and mistakes of all my previous lives. Apparently there’s this thing called past life regression and it helps a lot of people make sense of themselves and the things they do.’ Henry was presented with a brownie and dropped half of it straight downhis front. ‘And it’s absolutely not something I would have done while I was married, because I couldn’t bear his disapproving face, or his voice, or the way he held his cutlery, so that qualifies as a
‘Well, if you’ve got enough money to do that we could spend it on—’
And then there would always be a ‘something’ for the house, the car, his hobbies. Once I gave up a place on a Reiki course so he could buy a pet snake and a games console, both apparently for our son, neither of which our son has ever played with; the Reiki course would have qualified me to teach, providing a valuable second income for our family .
Even if we were trying to arrange something nice, like booking a family holiday, most of the things I wanted to do didn’t interest him. No matter how passionate I was about a place or country he would say no. And when you are married at some point you get tired of battling, tired of fighting, tired of trying to maintain certain boundaries. So you give in, you agree, you give up. I was married from 22 years old to 30. This is the first time in my adult life I can really identify my own wants and needs and then, with a lot of hard work and planning, start to pursue the things, the longings sitting deep in my soul that are not connected to anyone but me. I’ve never been so excited about my future .
coffee shop | spitalfields market | london
Good God! I had awakened the beast. It wasn’t just that Leah had a lot to say. It was that she wanted to say it all at once, and she wanted to say it all to me. Mostly because I am one of her best friends, but also because I had put a key in a previously unused lock and the door had exploded wide open. If we were in an American action film Nicholas Cage would have been standing by that door of love-lost dreams putting Semtex on the lock, frame and anything else in the surrounding door area. Leah was finally free.
‘So I’ve been working through my list of love-stolendreams,’ Leah said, extracting an enormous phonebook-sized document out of her handbag. ‘And I think that I’m making good progress. I’ve completed the Reiki course, as you know, and, Henry, Henry, put that down!’ Henry, Leah’s son, had her iPhone in his mouth. ‘And I absolutely loved it, box ticked.’ She ticked an imaginary box in the air. So did Henry. ‘And I’ve got some other love-stolen dreams organised. There’s a lot to get through,’ she said, patting the gigantic document that was in fact her handwritten list of love-stolen dreams. ‘But I thought it would be nice to understand why I’d let myself get to a place where I was manically dribbling into my porridge, staring at my ex-husband across the kitchen and wanting to throw Petits Filous Frubes at his head. I mean, I wasn’t always a passive-aggressive downtrodden wife.’ She was more aggressive than passive but it wasn’t the moment. ‘So I’ve decided to do a bit of alternative research, which means that if you do that you won’t have a brownie, I told you, Henry, behave or no brownie, so you are going to have to be pretty open-minded when I tell you my idea.’
‘I am not here to judge. I am here to take back what love stole.’ This has been my mantra since the early shock of Mary’s mechanical revelations.
‘Well, it was my Reiki teacher’s idea really. She thought one way to better understand the obstacles and mistakes of this life would be to understand the obstacles and mistakes of all my previous lives. Apparently there’s this thing called past life regression and it helps a lot of people make sense of themselves and the things they do.’ Henry was presented with a brownie and dropped half of it straight downhis front. ‘And it’s absolutely not something I would have done while I was married, because I couldn’t bear his disapproving face, or his voice, or the way he held his cutlery, so that qualifies as a
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