The Seven Year Itch

Prologue

I wasn’t looking for Him.

The prospect of falling in love with another man was inconceivable.

Or so I thought.

I was the woman people turned to in a crisis, not the one in the middle of an existential one. Change terrified me. Fun, I could be, spontaneous– no freaking way.

I sought a simple life, without stress or drama, preferring a bottle of Pinot and my own company most evenings. The wildest I got was three glasses on a school night.

Occasionally, I’d commit to an irregular fad of exercising and update my girlfriends on WhatsApp with a daily progress report. ‘My name’s Lucy O’Connor and I haven’t had a drink for three days.’

As far as vices go, it could have been worse than a couple of quiet snifters on my couch.

So, believe me when I say I wasn't looking for trouble. I found it anyway. By God, did I find it.

It was like a thunderbolt of lightning exiting the sky, and striking the very core of me, waking me from my meaningless, although not entirely unpleasant existence.

I never believed a love like it could exist, let alone happen to someone like me.

Nothing would ever be the same, regardless of whether I pursued it or denied it. A beast had awakened in me. One that had been starved of affection for longer than I could remember.

I’d seen the light at the end of an incredibly long and lonely tunnel. I could no longer pretend that things would ever be right.

I had so much to be grateful for.

A great job.

A roof over my head.

The best friends a girl could ask for. Fun loving Rachel, whose alter ego ‘Raquelle’ was responsible for everything that occurred post wine.

Sensible and sensitive Katie, harassed mother of two tiny terrors, and fellow dental hygienist. Clara, the quick witted and quirky practice manager from work, who was also the famous founder of the Wednesday Wine Club.

I holidayed three times a year with my frivolous, fun-loving mum. I dined out in nice restaurants with my friends, drank cocktails with my colleagues.

But on the flip side, I worked my fingers to the bone, six days a week, primarily to escape the four oppressive walls I called home, and the man I shared them with.

I was a child bride. It’s not like I was even pregnant. I’m sure our extended families waited with bated breath for ‘The Joyful Announcement’ for months afterwards. Chance would be a fine thing.

Rob was American. We’d been dating on and off for a year when his visa expired. He faced deportation, unless of course we got married.

I knew I wasn’t in love when I tottered up the aisle weighed down with a hefty wedding dress and head full of delusional dreams. Foolish maybe but wait for it– this is the crazy bit.

I thought I was being clever you see.

So many times, I’d seen people close to me fall head over heels, crazy in love. I even envied them, wondering when this magical thing would happen to me. The ‘can’t eat or sleep for thinking about him’ kind of love. The ‘I need to see him right now or I might combust with lust’ kind of love.

I wanted it for myself, until I saw first-hand the damage it was capable of.

It was all-consuming, overwhelming, and I witnessed it suck the life out of those involved from the inside out. It seemed to me love was like a tornado; it powered in hard and fast and destroyed everything in its path, before fading and disappearing as rapidly as it arrived.

Often, it wasn’t actually love, of course.

It was infatuation.

A person couldn’t think straight amidst its throes. Rational people became irrational, alienating their friends and family, making countless grave decisions, sacrificing everything they’d ever known before. All for this higher power ‘love’ which took priority over everything and everyone else.

I didn’t want that for myself, didn’t want to feel helplessly controlled by an emotion generated by chemicals which caused only chaos in the real world.

My twenty-year-old cynical young self assumed if I wasn’t crazy head over heels in love to begin with, then I couldn’t really fall out of love.

Following a childhood fuelled by instability, I sought a steady, secure relationship, not something that would wither and die as the chemical reactions lessened on our brains and bodies over time.

I wanted someone solid to stand by me. Someone who wouldn’t uproot everything and leave.

Someone with the same goals, hopes and dreams. I craved normality, emotional security, a family of my own.

My plan seemed fool proof at the time. I knew what I was going to be left with in the end, because I already had it. Not the most exciting relationship, but a life partner.

On reflection, with hindsight only age and experience bring, I was lonely, and I was vulnerable.

I knew within three months of marrying Rob I’d made a mistake.

A big one.

He certainly wouldn’t up and leave, but solid he was not.

The cracks appeared almost immediately, but I was too pig-headed and stubborn to even admit to my own mother I’d messed up.

A deep-rooted shame stopped me from confiding in my friends.

My ridiculous pride rendered me lonely.

Instead, I attempted to wallpaper over the enormous gaping cracks that emerged throughout the core of us, splitting the foundations and leaving nothing stable to contemplate building anything on.

I fell into the role of Rob’s mother rather than his wife. Instead of having a partner to lean on, I ended up balancing the full weight of a grown man-child on my back.

Rob worked on a building site. He was studying a construction management degree at night. I cooked, cleaned, and dealt with the other dull aspects of adulthood, to offer him more time to study.

But the more I did, the more he let me do.

Which would have been fine if he actually passed the damned exams. It frustrated the life out of me watching him with the textbooks open, staring blankly ahead into space.

Trying to engage him in conversation was like pulling teeth, and I should know. Ultimately, I knew my work colleagues better than I knew my husband.

There was no depth behind those dappled deceiving eyes. During the frequent silences between us, I’d ask him what he was thinking. He would always answer with one word– nothing. And I honestly think he meant it.

How could a person not be thinking anything? There’s always something on my mind.

Why weren’t blueberries actually blue?

What was my life purpose?

Why was I here?

I was the human version of the computer with seven million tabs open. Was it any wonder I struggled to fall asleep each night?

Rob and I were very different. So much for opposites attracting.

The void between us became increasingly obvious. I tried to talk things out, but he failed to understand what I wanted and what the problem was.

The urge to light a fire under his arse and kick-start some sort of drive in him burned like a blowtorch.

I craved conversation, communication on a deeper level with the bond that I thought marriage would bring.

I don’t think that deeper level existed in him.

The lights were on, but there was nobody home.

Over time, I stopped trying.

I accepted it.

We slipped into a rut of resentment. Well, I did. He was happy being pandered to.

We no longer wanted the same things, or if we did, he wasn’t willing to work towards them with me. The drive had left him since we got married.

We were supposed to be a team. He was supposed to be my equal. I felt let down, deflated even and deprived, without the initial high of ever actually being properly in love. But having made my bed, I lay in it, cold and lonely.

Rob and I lived separate lives under the same roof, under the pretence that the situation was normal, but we both knew deep down it was far from it.

I’d accepted that it was just going to be that way.

Now and then, somebody would ask that painfully awkward question: ‘When are you guys going to have a baby?’

It wasn’t entirely unreasonable I suppose, given we’d been married for seven years, but there was zero chance of that happening.

We all know how babies are made and there was none of that going on.

There hadn’t been for years. Plus, I already had the man-child to look after and I could barely manage that, let alone anything else.

But bar the complete lack of any form of romance or intimacy, life was good. Intimacy seemed overrated to me, anyway.

I completely and utterly lacked desire.

Until that night…

I didn’t bank on really falling in love.

With somebody else.

I met him one balmy summer night.

Bang, The Universe dealt me a brand-new hand of cards, the Royal Flush. The prize was phenomenal, more than I could comprehend, but so were the stakes, and I’d never gambled with anything before–let alone my life.

Cupid’s bow struck me hard and fast when I least expected it. I fell head over heels, crazy in love. The ‘couldn’t eat or sleep for thinking about him kind of love’. The irrational, uncontrollable, overwhelming, all-consuming love I would sacrifice anything for.

Chemicals, though they might be, were more addictive than the purest drug in the entire universe. Who would have thought?

The only teeny tiny problem was, I was already married to somebody else.