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Waiting with increasing irritation in a restaurant for my ‘date’ to arrive, I took stock. We hadn’t seen one another for a fortnight because I’d been in Los Angeles for work, while he had been at home in London.
When he turned up I almost didn’t recognise him. He’d had a haircut, was wearing a shirt I’d never seen and went on to order wine I’d never heard of. But this wasn’t some on-off casual boyfriend. The man opposite me was my husband.
We were both 32 and I was working as a reality TV producer, a job that frequently saw me working away from home. It was the golden age of reality TV, and I was a total workaholic. I had no social life, and barely saw my husband.
It was to prove an untenable situation. Even though we’d only been married for a year, we divorced six months after that awkward meeting.
That’s why I’m entirely unsurprised that Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban have reportedly called time on their 19-year marriage.
Country singer Keith is said to have ‘blindsided’ a heartbroken Nicole with his desire to split after their hectic work and touring schedules saw them spending less and less time together.
Oh Nicole, I could have warned you. A long-distance marriage is doomed to fail.
The Big Little Lies actress and her husband are the latest in a string of celebrity couples to split citing distance as a factor.
There’s also been Cat Deeley and Patrick Kielty, who called time on their marriage in July. Cat spends the week in London presenting This Morning, while Patrick is in Dublin for his chat show. He even has a separate home there.
Like both couples, my husband and I had been together for more than a decade, dating on and off since we were 18. You naively assume because you have history, you’ll navigate the changing tides together. But unless you spend quality time as a couple, you start making small decisions on your own, which eventually lead to larger ones.
You forget small intimacies, like making each other coffee just how you like it. Things slowly begin to slide. And in TV there is always someone to make your coffee. Was I guilty of treating my husband as merely another member of my entourage? Possibly. And men don’t do well as subservient creatures to their successful – and absent – wives.
As a woman in the media (whether you’re in front of the camera like Nicole, or behind it like I was) the siren call of work can be irresistible. Particularly when you’re seen as only being as good as your last show.
And my reality was the dream for many. That year, in 2003, I was on a six-figure salary as the head of programming for a production company. I was in America two weeks out of every month. Even at home I had to ensure I was free for transatlantic calls, meaning my head often wouldn’t hit the pillow until after midnight.
While Keith Urban is famous himself, Nicole’s star has long eclipsed his. And I know the warm glow of professional success can be more alluring than domestic drudgery with a less successful husband.
Behind every man who has ‘made it’ there is a loyal, supportive woman who has enabled his success. But, sadly, successful women still end up propping up their insecure husbands. I ended up mothering my other half, who worked in comedy, bringing home presents for him to make him feel valued – as well as still being the one to make sure our cleaner turned up on time.
The one time he flew out to see me in Hollywood ended in him throwing a tantrum over the arrangements.
Even so, an older, wiser me perhaps would have made different decisions. I wouldn’t have shut him down when he complained about me being away for yet another weekend. Would it have killed me to have suggested he accompanied me some times?
We went on a make-or-break holiday to Marrakesh but we were like strangers. Two months later, in November 2004, I filed for divorce; I had been offered a plum position based permanently in Los Angeles and, as brutal as it sounds, I didn’t want a plus one.
Still, I felt horrendously guilty and sad that I’d ‘failed’. I resolved to make better choices if I was lucky enough to have a ‘next time’.
When I met Pascal, my second husband, in 2007, I had realised a career won’t love you back and showbiz friends, as wonderful as they can be, are like passing clouds. I moved to France to be with him and we married in the spring of 2008.
I was consulting from home, but a year later I was headhunted and offered a six-figure salary to be a London-based TV executive again.
A part of me drooled at the adrenaline high of pitching multi-million pound series again. But it would mean Pascal and I would be apart five days a week – not to mention how burnt-out I’d be from the constant grind. I’d learnt my lesson.
So I carefully composed the email that closed the door on a dazzling reboot to my television career. This time, I put my marriage first.
Do I have any regrets? No. Take it from me, long distance relationships rarely work out. As the French expression goes: ‘Loin des yeux, loin du cœur.’
Far from the eyes, far from the heart.