One for Joy

I lost my partner J to suicide in April 2022.

J and I met at a time when I thought I was going to be single for a long while. Having recently split up with the kids’ dad C, I had only been alone for five months.

It was as amicable a split as you could hope for, helped by the fact that we had never married, so no lawyers. There were some teething problems while we worked out the finances (always the money!), but right at the beginning of the split we agreed that we both wanted to to be present at all our sons’ big life events. Therefore, whatever issues we had, whatever disagreements, the most important thing was that we remained friends. Dylan and Nathan were eight and six at the time. 

It was 2019 and I had gone to Brighton for a friend’s fiftieth over the May bank holiday weekend. I had returned home on the Sunday feeling decidedly worse for wear. On the bank holiday Monday, my friend Amy asked if I wanted to go to the May fete with her and her son Elliot. It was the last thing I felt like doing, I had the kind of hangover that makes your hair hurt. But I reasoned it would entertain the kids for a couple of hours.

The fete was disappointing, with no food stalls, so we escaped to the fish and chips shop around the corner. A man entered and went to order at the counter, and Amy leapt up and went over to him. I’ve never seen her move so fast. I had been concentrating on the kids’ meals – helping with condiments, opening drinks. All the usual challenges of feeding children in public. When Amy introduced us, I looked up. His face was partially hidden by a woolly beanie, a scarf and a scruffy beard, but his eyes were a stunning blue-green and his smile was beautiful. I was suddenly painfully aware of how tired and bedraggled I looked.

When he said goodbye and left the shop I asked Amy why she had never mentioned him before. He’d been living in France, but had recently split up with his girlfriend and was here staying with family. Amy had met him a few times at various school events, his niece had been in the same class as Dylan and Elliot for a while.

While she was talking to J at the chip shop it transpired that his living arrangements weren’t working out. I had a work trip coming up in June and was looking for someone to house-sit and look after my lurcher Optimus. Amy set to work. “Don’t worry,” she said in one message, “I’ve really sold you to him.” I cringed, imagining he would be thinking how sad and desperate I must be.

J came to see the room on the same day I messaged him. We drank a couple of bottles of beer, listened to Radio 6 and chatted easily. He moved in a few days before I went on my trip. He didn’t bring much stuff with him. It all worked out well, so we agreed he would stay for a little longer. We were going to Greece to see my parents that August, so he looked after the dog again. 

In the couple of months between my work trip and the holiday to Greece we had an absolute blast. He was so much fun to be around, was such a happy, vibrant character. I would hear him singing loudly in the kitchen as he was making coffee. He would play loud, silly games with the boys and turn dog walks into adventures.

It (understandably) caused some friction with the boys’ dad. C had moved into a rented house around the corner. We would sometimes drive past each other on the school run while he was on his way to work. If J was with me, we were always laughing and I remember seeing C’s glare once as he drove past.

The kids instantly became besotted with J and went to their dad’s talking about him non-stop, which didn’t help. C sent me messages saying that I was crossing boundaries and that it wasn’t appropriate. I sent him messages back saying I was doing nothing wrong, he should just focus on his own relationship with the boys. I could step back and understand why he might feel upset, but I also felt swept up in the pure joy of spending time with J.

When August came around and we went on the two week holiday to Greece I realised I missed J. I messaged Amy to tell her as much, I knew they had arranged to go on a dog walk together, so I was fishing to see if he had said anything about me. She didn’t mention anything, but many months later J confessed that he had also told her that he was really missing me on that dog walk. To this day I don’t know why she didn’t let on.

A few weeks after we got back, one evening after a few glasses of wine, we somehow ended up admitting we had feelings for each other. We kept it a secret for a couple of months while we worked out if there was something there, but I already knew. 

He hated being in the UK and had never intended to stay here. His relationship with his family was complex and he wasn’t used to being in such close proximity with them. I hadn’t intended to enter into a relationship so quickly after my breakup, let alone introduce a new partner to the kids. I had been looking forward to some time to to focus on them and on myself.

J was eight years younger than me, no kids and in a completely different place in his life. He’d travelled the world, lived in China, Thailand, Australia, France. The UK was literally bottom of the list of countries he would consider settling down in. It wasn’t what either of us had intended. But as far as I was concerned he was everything I could have hoped for. He had a joy for life and a sense of adventure that brought those things out in me too. I have never been happier than in those first months of our relationship.

The obvious question is: “Were there any red flags?” And the honest answer is yes, some of them eventually becoming the size of giant billboards, desperately trying to get my attention. But they didn’t start out that way. They started out so teeny-tiny that I didn’t tell anyone about them. Telling someone might make them real, and that someone might actually label them as red flags.

The flags grew very slowly, both in size and severity and by the time they grew too big to ignore I was entrenched in the relationship and the kids were fully invested. I was worried that they wouldn’t understand if I broke up with J and would resent the fact that first I had separated from their dad and then, a short few years later, from J. My confidence was also at an all-time low, to the extent that I convinced myself I wouldn’t be able to manage without him.

I should make it clear that J hid his more difficult times from the kids. They occasionally saw an outburst of anger or frustration, but it was never directed at them. Every so often I would have to tell them not to bother him as he “wasn’t feeling very well” and had gone for a lie down, but other than that, they were oblivious.

An early warning sign I ignored was his drinking. I’ve always loved wine and beer and have done my fair share of recreational drinking in my twenties and thirties (oh, OK then, and my forties). In the excitement of those early days I was happy having a few too many while me and J tip-toed around each other like giggly teenagers. As I started to hope that my feelings were reciprocated, it felt like drinking emboldened us and increased the chances of one of us confessing. It was exciting. I started to notice that if there was ever a leftover half-full glass of wine (rarely, and always mine) next to the sink the next day, J would knock it back, even at seven in the morning. I soon learnt to pour my unwanted wine down the sink when he wasn’t looking.

A few months into our relationship he went into London with his mum. They visited multiple pubs and I was a bit surprised when he turned up back home in the middle of the night. They had argued and he had taken her car and driven home, despite being over the limit. He had a complete disregard for his own safety, but at the time I thought it was a one-off and am embarrassed to say that in my attempt to be supportive, I didn’t address it for what it was: dangerous. (Again, I feel the need to stress that he only took risks with his own safety, never mine or the kids’).

We regularly went to to a yoga studio fifteen minutes from the house and he would go through phases of going to three classes a day. He would then get completely worked up because he didn’t have enough time to get anything else done.

There was a difficult dynamic, it worked initially but caused tension later on. I had a senior, well-paid job so I worked full-time. He didn’t have a ‘regular’ job but looked after the house, the garden, did all the school pick ups and drop offs, took the kids to swimming lessons, walked the dog, cooked most of the meals.

As far as I was concerned he more than pulled his weight and was an enormous help to me, but he never felt like it was enough. I didn’t mind him going to yoga, in fact I encouraged it. But three classes in one day, plus travel to and from the studio – it wasn’t difficult to see why he was struggling to fit everything in. He took things to the extreme. I suggested he went to a couple of classes a week on a regular basis so that he could have more of a routine, but when he was in those manic ‘all-or-nothing’ periods, that seemed completely absurd to him.  

The Covid lockdowns were the beginning of the end for him. During the first lockdown there was that surreal period where the weather was glorious. It was like we were on some eerie holiday from normal life. Work was incredibly stressful for me. But we also made the most of the garden, our rural location and the fact that the online schooling was initially a bit ‘just do what you can.’ We picked topics and got both boys working on them – supplementing with BBC Bitesize videos, doing the Joe Wicks workouts and online yoga classes. My work put on online after school clubs. So the kids would do science experiments or PE in the living room, which somehow always involved all the cushions ending up on the floor. 

J was deeply cynical of the response to Covid. I’m not sure if he thought the virus itself was manufactured, but he definitely saw the whole thing as a conspiracy. A way for the government to access all our information and, ultimately, control us. By the second lockdown the schools had pulled their socks up and the boys each had a set schedule. There were times where the three of us were on three different Zoom calls at the same time. I’m not sure how families with less space (and fewer devices) coped with this. We would draw up a timetable at the beginning of each week to ensure the boys both made it to the right Zoom lesson. Nathan’s lessons would often start part-way through Dylan’s.

J really struggled. It would regularly end up with him getting frustrated, saying: “I can’t do this!” and disappearing, leaving me to juggle the kids’ schooling and my own ever-increasing work demands. I work in HR and the default response to anything any employee had to say about Covid was: “Speak to HR.” HR was me and one other person, and – spoiler alert! – we didn’t have any insider knowledge of how to deal with a pandemic.

I told everyone that I spoke to that I was so lucky, that J did all the home-schooling. The reality is that I probably did about 60% of it because he couldn’t cope. I just didn’t want to admit it. Each week we would go through the same thing. We would get to Monday morning and he would get angry because it was all too last minute. He would repeatedly say we needed to plan it all out on Sunday. Then Sunday would arrive and he wanted to have a few drinks and didn’t want to do the planning. Monday would come round again and there would be another episode. In the end it was just easier for me to take over.

I’m still incredibly grateful for what he did manage. He was amazing with Dylan, who – being autistic – found the Zoom lessons over-stimulating, and struggled to absorb the content. And there were some glorious times in there as well. We were so blessed to have a garden and live in an area surrounded by fields and countryside. For a lot of it I was blissfully happy in our little bubble, growing vegetables, going on bike rides, camping in the living room, spending hours creating online quizzes for all the family. Yes, I made sourdough. And banana bread. This blissful bubble is probably why I ignored the growing red flags. The good bits were so good that I put up with bad bits that should have had me questioning our future.

In addition to the drinking and the inability to cope with chaos, an aspect of controlling behaviour gradually started to creep in. I’m easy-going in relationships. I don’t get jealous, clingy or possessive, I am independent and trust easily. Otherwise, what’s the point? J was the kind of handsome that prompted complete strangers to go up to him and give him their number. But his deep-rooted feelings of abandonment and distrust slowly started to come to the surface. He started to question who I was messaging on my phone (my Mum, usually). Snarky comments would be made when I spoke to the kids’ dad on the phone. That I seemed happy, that he could hear us laughing. He would grumble that I always gave in when C wanted to swap weekends.

It reached a point where it was easier not to use my phone in front of him. Then he’d say: “Why did you put your phone down when I came into the room?” I once had my phone on my lap as we drove to a yoga class, he was in a foul mood. I didn’t look at my phone during the drive. But when we got there and I picked it up to get out of the car he barked: “Who are you texting?” Another time I gave C a lift to the garage to collect his car and I didn’t tell J about it. I knew he would turn it into something negative. 

Leading up to me going to California on a work trip, I arranged to meet a male friend for lunch. I hadn’t seen him in a long time, mainly due to J’s insecurities. I didn’t tell J that I was meeting Anthony. J had made me a packed lunch and I took it into work with me. I met Anthony in a local pub garden, feeling anxious the entire time that J would by chance fancy a pint at lunchtime and walk in and see us. It was a completely innocent meet-up, yet I felt like I was cheating. If J had turned up I can only imagine that his reaction would have been extreme. But I didn’t tell him about the meeting. I knew he would spend the whole day getting worked up and wouldn’t believe me if I told him it was nothing.

After lunch, when I got back to my desk, I forced myself to eat some of the packed lunch. I knew J would ask me if I liked it and I didn’t want to lie. While I was joylessly shovelling in forkfuls of couscous salad, I thought: “Who even am I?” I didn’t recognise myself. That couscous salad finally made me realise that there was something seriously wrong in the relationship.

The week-long work trip to California gave me some distance from it all. It helped me put my thoughts in order. J spiralled while I was away. Initially I was messaging all the time. But when I called him on the second day, he said my voice was funny. He started asking me who was in the room with me (no one). After the call, he messaged me to say he couldn’t speak to me any more. It wasn’t the ‘real’ me. The distance the trip put between us made me come to my senses and realise that giving him a stable, loving home and a healthy lifestyle wasn’t enough to ‘fix’ him. He needed professional help and medication.

We messaged a few times after that phone call, but on my last evening in California I made a huge mistake. I went out with my two colleagues and we had a few drinks, so I didn’t reply to J’s text. I didn’t want to have to explain that I was out with two male colleagues. More importantly, I didn’t want him to call me while I was more than a little tipsy – I needed my wits about me to navigate his inevitable cross-examination. So I didn’t reply to him until early the next morning, when I messaged him with a white lie: “Sorry, I crashed out.”

All hell broke loose in a barrage of texts. He accused me of knowingly doing it to upset him.

“You don’t make it easy on me.”

“Still nothing to worry about i guess? maybe too late.”

“It’s incredibly frustrating you do what you do knowing what i’m like.”

“And knowing how I’ve been. Have a safe trip, no need to discuss this again.”

“Near killed me.”

“I know it’s me, but as you know I’m fucked at the mo. I don’t expect anything to change. Just can’t keep going like this.”

This was all based on me not messaging on one evening out, the night before I returned. I regret it, of course I do. And of course I would change it if I could. I have re-played that night a thousand times in my head. But I can also recognise that not texting on one evening out is not what caused his suicide.

The kids were with him on the Friday evening before I returned. He had taken them out bowling while he was sending those messages. I was worried for him and for the kids, I asked him if they should go to their dad’s.

“Yes then I can pack, he can drop them when you return.”

“OK sorry, boys know. All done.”

“I’m off.”

“Dyl bothered a bit, Nath not.”

“It’s better this way.”

“You know why! I’m dead.”

“Don’t worry boys will be fine.”

“This is it! I asked and you still did it.”

While all these texts kept coming, I was trying to text him back and call him from the airport, but there was no signal. Nothing was getting through. He had a basic phone that didn’t have WhatsApp or wi-fi. I was frantic that he had told the boys he was leaving without me being there to support them, I knew they would be sad and confused. Eventually I managed to call him using Skype dial-up, and convinced him to wait for me to get back to discuss it.

“Thank you, I’m so sorry! It beat me in the end. I love you so much.”

“And the boys.”

“I really tried.”

“Promise I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I know you tried so hard, I don’t ever want to converse with you on text again.”

I got home at lunchtime on the Saturday, three hours later he was dead.