Category Archives: Relationships

How we met: ‘I fancied him as soon as he rescued me’

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Joan and John Gallagher, 64 and 62, met in June 1983 after a windsurfing session went wrong. They now live together in Catalonia in Spain

In 1983, Joan Tuohy was living and working in Boyle, in County Roscommon in the west of Ireland, an area popular for its water sports on nearby Lough Key. One summer’s day she was out windsurfing on the lough when she got into difficulties. “It’s quite a big lake and when the wind changed I realised I wouldn’t make it back to shore,” Joan says. Luckily, she was able to raise the alarm and her friend, who had a speedboat, came to her rescue. Also in the boat was a young man she didn’t know.

“I had been away at university and had just come home,” John says. “My friend asked if I could help to rescue Joan – it’s quite hard to pull a person and their windsurfing board into a boat alone.” They sped out across the lough and John helped Joan out of the water. “He had a Mars bar in his pocket and when I got in the boat he took it out and asked if I was hungry,” she says, laughing. “I thought he looked very handsome.” He remembers that she looked “very stranded and cold” in her bathing suit.

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‘Which came first, booze or boys?’: untangling a love affair with alcohol

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For better and for worse, drinking has been a constant thread running through writer Megan Nolan’s relationships. She reflects on the dual thrills of alcohol and romance

From the very beginning, whenever there was a crush, there was also a drink in my hand. In his novel High Fidelity, Nick Hornby’s narrator Rob, an unhappy vinyl obsessive, asks himself: “Which came first, the music or the misery?” Did he learn to be unhappy from the sad songs he loved, or did the songs comfort him after the unhappiness was already a fact? In my case, the question is something like this: which came first, the booze or the boys? Did I just happen to begin my romantic life at the same time as my drinking life? Or were my infatuations and love stories authored – or at least fuelled – by the alcohol that accompanied them?

This is not the story of a tragic, ruined woman who destroys all her relationships through drinking. In some, I drank very moderately; in most others, only to good-spirited excess, which caused no harm. There is no redemption arc here, no coming to the light. I still drink now. It is one of my personal bugbears that we seem as a culture flatly incapable of discussing many of life’s most complex issues without urgently needing to name and solve them, preferably with formal medical interventions. And so I can’t speak about a plodding, hopeless soul sickness that afflicts me at times without being cornered into describing it as depression or an anxiety disorder. This is not to say that these things don’t exist; of course they do, and over the years I’ve taken medication for both. But the terms and the drugs are too blunt as tools to address the infinite realm of human suffering and struggle that they sit within.

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‘My thoughts became poisonous’: the toll of lockdown when you live alone

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Long-term social isolation is as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. What has the last year meant for those who don’t share their homes?

When the first headlines about coronavirus began to appear in January 2020, they had little impact on south Londoner TJ, 25. “It seems outrageous now, but I thought: ‘I’m young, I’m healthy, I’ll be fine.’” By the time the first lockdown was announced, his mindset had begun to shift. He’d been single “for ever” and his housemate was spending lockdown with her parents, but he felt that same batten-down-the-hatches optimism many did in the era of weekly clapping and Zoom quizzes. “But that first weekend, the silence of the house and all the hours to fill – I got this inkling… mentally, I don’t know where I’ll be at the end of this. Four weeks in, I was genuinely scared for my mental health, I wasn’t coping at all.”

TJ is one of an estimated 7.7 million people in the UK who lived alone for most or all of the last year. “It’s not a game of Top Trumps, it’s not like my anxiety is more profound,” he says. “But it is different when you’re experiencing it all on your own.” In November 2020 the Office for National Statistics released findings that showed acute loneliness had climbed to record levels, with 8% of adults (around 4.2 million people) feeling “always or often lonely”, and 16-29-year-olds twice as likely as the over-70s to experience loneliness in the pandemic. “You’d never think fear of missing out would exist when we’re all stuck at home,” TJ says. “But I’d be scrolling through Instagram, seeing friends with their boyfriends or housemates, and thinking: ‘I wish I had someone. I feel so alone.’”

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‘I never imagined it would be so long’: the couples kept apart by Covid rules

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Many long-distance couples are spending Valentine’s Day apart because of travel restrictions

Helen Riddle’s husband, Tim, hasn’t been home in almost a year. He left the UK in March last year for what was supposed to be two weeks, and Covid-19 measures have prevented his return. His Christmas presents wait for him under the tree their three children insist on keeping up until he gets back.

Tim is a pilot who flies medical equipment around the world. Though he has lived in Hong Kong for the past six years, he would normally come home every six to eight weeks. Before he left again in March, Helen says they begged him not to go but he had no choice but to return to work. “At that point I thought: ‘We’re not going to see him for a while,’ but I never, ever imagined it would be as long as it has been.”

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I’m thinking of asking a work colleague out for a romantic walk

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How should I go about making my move? Strange times indeed, says Mariella Frostrup, but who says romance is dead?

The dilemma A colleague I have had my eye on in the office was recently promoted, meaning we are now equals in the company. Along with working remotely at the moment, this has made me wonder if now the right time is to ask her out (so far as we can date anyone right now), away from the glare of our small company. I have always ruled it out but when I date other girls, she is always in the back of my mind, which has led me to think I need to give it a go. When I became suddenly ill last year, it was her I thought of in my hospital bed as I wondered what I would regret, even though I was in a relationship with someone else. I do feel worried though, as I’m very inexperienced for someone my age. I was thinking of asking if she wants to go for a lockdown walk first, and seeing what happens after a few walks and messages. Can you give me some advice on workplace relationships, particularly in the circumstances?

Mariella replies Strange circumstances indeed. First, may I congratulate you on waiting until you were of equal stature in the workplace before making your move? How very evolved and modern. In other ways you’re an old-fashioned guy. As your dilemma aptly demonstrates, these are challenging times for the singleton, the ranks of whom will have swelled considerably with anyone not already hooked or bubbled-up nearly one long year ago likely to still be on their own. If you didn’t have a partner last March it is more than likely you’re stuck with, at best, a virtual one at this point.

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Taking dating lessons from my daughter: ‘Flirting is being present in the moment’

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It was coming up to Christmas and I asked my grown daughter what she wanted. She said, ‘What I want for you is to find love again’

It was something that hadn’t crossed my mind to want for myself. I was 65 and amicably separated from her father. Our marriage had lost its mojo long before; there had been struggle and frustration, and she had witnessed that.

I replied, “Darling, I’ve got a great life! I travel, I do interesting work, I’ve got great friends, I’m content.” She said, “No, I want you to love again.” It turned out that she’d spoken to my friends who’d known me for decades, and they had told her what I was like in my 20s: that I was an incredible flirt, that I was vivacious, that I was confident around men. She said, “I haven’t seen that part of you.”

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When you can’t quit a crush

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Falling head over heels in love is one thing, but if it becomes all-consuming you may be in ‘limerance’

A few years ago I was at my university’s library, frantically refreshing a dating app. Under my crush’s photo there was a location setting that told me how far she was from me. “One mile away!” I felt a surge of adrenaline and my mind started racing.

I was a promoter for a gay nightclub in London’s Soho, which was where I met Lucy. I’d drop my flyers on purpose and she’d help me pick them up. We had been on a few dates and were making plans to meet again. Then we came across each other on a dating app – “Fancy seeing you here!” – and matched as a joke. Even though dating apps were probably unreliable in their geolocation abilities, suddenly I could gauge her distance from me.

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‘We are desperate for human contact’: people breaking lockdown for sex

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For nearly 12 months, single people have been unable to form new relationships. With their chances to start a family or find love slipping away, many are now ignoring the rules

Last summer, shortly after the first lockdown was relaxed enough to allow strangers to meet outdoors, Rosie, 35, an editor based in London, joined a man for a first date on Hampstead Heath. “He said: ‘I brought some wine with me, but the glasses are in my flat, round the corner.’ I’d only met him for an hour. Even in normal times, I wouldn’t be up for that.” She can’t be entirely sure if he was suggesting an illicit drink or a very quick-off-the-bat shag, but it wasn’t a dilemma, at least. “Maybe people’s pheromones have gone funny,” Rosie says, “or maybe I secretly have Covid and can’t smell anyone properly, but I’ve had more smouldering frisson at the supermarket than I have on a date. I’ve had sex just four times since March.”

For nearly a year, give or take the odd month, the rules introduced to fight the spread of coronavirus mean that, in England, sex between single people, or established couples who don’t cohabit, has in effect been either illegal, or against regulations, or only allowed outdoors. To give that a sense of scale, 40% of people – rising to 71% among 16- to 29-year-olds – don’t live in a couple.

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How we met: ‘He said I was the nicest girl he’d ever seen – he looked so awkward!’

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Alice, 51, and Ian, 55, Glass, met in a restaurant in Johannesburg in 1990. They live and work together on a farm near Kruger national park, South Africa

Alice Granville was in her final year of university in August 1990 when she met a friend for dinner. “Her husband was meant to join us with one of his friends, and he was going to be my blind date,” she says. However, the two men were late, so Alice and her friend continued to drink in the bar. Ian, who was out with friends enjoying the live music, spotted her from across the room. “She caught my eye and I smiled shyly,” he remembers. Alice and her friend gave up waiting for their dates and moved into the restaurant dining room. “I noticed she’d disappeared, and I had this really strong feeling of missed opportunity. My friends were completely unaware,” says Ian.

I was half looking at the menu, half wondering how I could meet her

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Destined for an arranged marriage, I chose to follow my heart

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As a teenager, true love seemed like an impossible dream, but I was determined to marry for love and not obligation

This year, my husband Richard and I will have been married for 10 years. It may not sound all that long, but it feels quietly significant to me, this decade of us, not least because there was a time that I could not fathom a world in which we could ever be together at all.

I grew up expecting to marry someone my parents chose for me: a suitable young man who would share my Pakistani family background, my cultural heritage and faith. I can’t remember how old I was when I understood this – only that I did, without it needing to be explained. It was what my cousins did and the daughters of our family friends did. It was the way things were.

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‘My personal lockdown has been much longer’: on chronic illness, before and after Covid

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Life before was a little different, but not a lot. Now I feel a new resilience and hope

Read more: Laura Barton on how a daily call to California got her through lockdown and Elle Hunt on moving to the other side of the world and the pandemic

I’ve been inside my cramped terrace house for nearly a year now. There haven’t been walks outside, or trips to the shops. Every morning, I wake into a day the same as yesterday. I reach out a hand to the cat who I know will be curled by my right side, listen for the creak of my son climbing down from his bunk bed. He will come and bundle himself under my covers, and we will begin again, another day juggling his schoolwork and my writing work, all conducted mostly from my bed.

I remember, dream-like, two weeks in the summer last year when it felt safe enough for my partner to fly over from Denmark, after six months apart. We drove to quiet places and he pushed me in my wheelchair. I wept, happy to see him and the green trees, and to eat picnics on the warm ground, a family again. It has been six months since then, and so we sit each day in front of iPads, touching fingers to the screen, baffled and smiling to still be in this strange, unforeseen predicament – falling in love, still, because distance does nothing to halt that. My life is one of pain, fatigue, activity, laughter.

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We need to talk: the linguistic clues that reveal your relationship is over

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A new study shows that months before a breakup, a partner’s language can change subtly. Here’s what to look out for

Name: The language of breakups

Age: Timeless. Ever since Eve ate that ill-fated pomegranate, romantic relationships have been problematic. And people have to find a way of saying goodbye. But this particular ...

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How we met: ‘A fortune teller told me how I would meet my partner. She was right’

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Teachers Naomi and Huw Beynon, 41 and 49, met at a salsa class in 2005. They live with their children in Swansea

Naomi Lewis was nursing a broken heart at the start of 2005, after splitting up with her boyfriend a few months earlier. She had recently moved into a new flat in Swansea, alone, and befriended Saffron, a woman who lived above her in the building. “In January, Saffron went on a bad blind date to a salsa class,” she says. “Although there was no spark, she loved the dancing and begged me to go back with her. I’ve got two left feet and didn’t fancy it, but she persuaded me.”

When they arrived, Saffron’s date from the previous week was there – and he had brought a friend. “I’d not long broken up with someone and I went with my friend Julian because it seemed like something to do on a Wednesday night,” says Huw Lewis. While Saffron told Naomi that Julian’s friend “was cute”, Naomi insisted Huw wasn’t her type. But after the class they got chatting and realised they had a lot in common. “We discovered we were both teachers and that both our parents were from the Welsh valleys,” remembers Naomi. Their personalities clicked; when Huw went to the toilet, Naomi told her friend she was going to marry him. “I must have had a special power,” laughs Huw. “I don’t think she’d even had a drink. When I started talking to her, I really liked her. She was quirky and interesting.”

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‘I’m grateful for our intense lockdown split’: what has the pandemic done to our relationships?

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This period of enforced togetherness has broken some couples and turbocharged others

Lexi can clearly recall the day she walked around the house looking for traces of her husband, Rob. Returning from her work as a dog groomer that Friday evening, as usual she went to put her shoes away in the drawer under the stairs. But opening it up, she noticed all his shoes were missing. She went to the bedroom and looked at his side of the wardrobe: empty. As she walked from room to room, the shock set in. The house had been picked clean of Rob’s possessions; even his tools in the garage, the ones he had just got around to organising, were gone.

The couple had been together for six years, married for two, and have a four-year-old child (Lexi also has a daughter from a previous relationship). In the early days of the pandemic, their marriage had seemed strong, but in May they went through a tough patch: Lexi miscarried, and by autumn Rob had become increasingly down, telling her more than once that the year had left him “emotionally drained”. Even so, Lexi felt blindsided when he announced he wanted a divorce in mid-November. Two weeks later, he had gone. There has been no communication between them since. Lexi still has many questions about why Rob left, but she believes 2020 might have broken their marriage.

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Revisited: How to make love last

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Morie and Liz met in London in 1980 but she was from Australia and he was from Iran. In this episode of Full Story, they tell how they overcame war, distance and disapproving parents to form a bond that has lasted 40 years

This week, we are replaying some of our favourite episodes. This episode first aired on 12 February 2020

You can read Alexandra Spring’s interview with Morie and Liz Goli here.

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