My father wasn’t sad to see her go, the divorce pretty much uncontested, and despite the fact they were no longer in love, it wasn’t a bitter divorce. They’d simply fallen out of love, stayed together until we were old enough, then they split apart. Wasn’t the first time I’d heard it done, wouldn’t be the last.
With Mum leaving, Dad didn’t want to keep the large house so put it on the market, wanting to downsize to little more than an apartment, as the house was worth considerably more thanks to the booming housing market. That left my sister and I with a problem as he was going to be downsizing considerably. He sat me down one evening and pretty much said I’d have to move out of home, my sister remaining since she was at university and couldn’t afford to live away from home. Wasn’t particularly what I wanted to hear, but at least he gave me time to put things together.
Then Hayley came up with an idea, meeting me for coffee the day after my father dumped that revelation on me. I move in with her and her parents until she finished university, then we’d marry and move in together. She realised what she’d said and blushed. I took her hand and suggested I might just have to look for a ring, considering we had been dating for three years by then.
I waited until she’d graduated university before proposing. She naturally said yes straight away, and considering she knew it was coming, it wasn’t a real surprise she’d been planning our wedding for quite a while. The surprise to me was that she didn’t want something big. “All your savings are for a house or apartment, Mark. A wedding is one day of our lives. Our home will be for life.”
We married less than six months after I proposed, and six months after that, moved into our own apartment. By the time I was 25, I was making fantastic money and even looking at starting up my own company. I enjoyed working where I did, but the idea of being my own boss was appealing, and with everything online nowadays, I knew I’d left plenty of satisfied customers that would open up plenty of work.
Hayley was happy in her job but was thinking about returning to university as a mature student to add to her previous qualifications. We sat down, did the sums, and figured we could afford it over a couple of years until she returned to the workforce. The only thing we couldn’t afford was a child, but she was careful with her birth control, and we’d had no concerns in all the years we’d been having sex, so just hoped that would remain.
I left work for that morning in a good mood. I had a beautiful wife, our own apartment I’d spent years decorating while my wife added her personal touches. We had all the material things people liked to buy. But my wife and I were still very much in love. She was back at university, studying a field she’d always been interested in, and knew there would be jobs upon graduating a second time. Once she was back at work, we agreed to start trying for a family once we hit 30. One or two kids at most, but we agreed we both wanted them.
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