I’m often told that the way my partner and I got together is like something out of a Fairy Tale or Hollywood movie, and as today is Tell a Fairy Tale Day I thought I’d share some of our story with you.

We first met 23 years ago in 1998, it wasn’t love at first sight.  In fact, my first thoughts were; he was rude, arrogant and I wouldn’t want to bump into him alone on a dark night!  I was out with some girlfriends for my birthday, we’d bumped into some mutual acquaintances, one of whom was the person I really fancied, and we’d all started enjoying the evening together, drinking, chatting, laughing, this rude, arrogant man seemed to tag along and we just couldn’t shake him off.

At the end of the evening we were all jumping into taxis and I discovered to my horror that he lived at the other end of the village I was in.  So we had to share a taxi.  I got out at his street so that we split the taxi bill and he invited me in for coffee.  Bizarrely, I agreed.  We sat at his kitchen table drinking coffee and talking.  We talked all night.  I recall sitting at the table seeing the sun come up and realising I still wasn’t home.

This was a revelation to me, a man who invites you in for coffee and a chat and genuinely wants coffee and a chat.  My interest was piqued.

He called me a couple of weeks later and we went on our first date – to the local Rugby 7’s tournament!  We actually dated for a year before going our separate ways; I went to live and work in London (I was living in South Wales at the time) and he went to Nottingham University as a mature student.  These were the days long before mobile phones were common-place and we just couldn’t maintain a long-distance relationship.

Not a day passed without me thinking about him.  In the years that followed I got married, had a baby, got divorced, went through business failure, bankruptcy and more before I started to put myself first and started following my dream to become an actor.

I recall receiving the call that told me me I was cast in a play that was due to tour the South West of England. I said to the partner I was with at the time “I have no idea how, but I know that this play is going to change my life”. 

It did change my life.

Whilst I was in rehearsal and chosen as the ‘poster girl’ for the play, that man I’d met all those years ago had headed into his local theatre to book tickets for a production.  Looking at the posters advertising forthcoming productions, he thought he recognised the woman in the poster for ‘Ward 7’, the play I was in.  Asking the box office manager if he knew who I was, and mentioning me by my maiden name, the box office manager also recognised me as I had been in a children’s theatre group with his daughters when I was a child.

A few telephone calls later and they had ascertained that ‘Yes’ I was the woman they thought I was.  At that point all I knew is that someone who thought they knew me had booked tickets for opening night.  I had no name, it could have been anyone.

A week before opening night I received a Facebook message request. It’s fair to say my heart skipped a beat when I saw who it was from.  But I was sceptical.  I hadn’t heard from him for 15 years at that point and the last I’d heard he was living and working in Canada with his girlfriend.  I agreed to meet him for a coffee.

Within minutes of meeting I knew I was in trouble.  All of those old feelings came rushing back and the conversation we had that day over coffee just reinforced the message that he really was the love of my life.

He turned up on Opening Night and within 3 weeks I had left my partner and moved in with him to his bachelor pad in a seaside town in the South West of England.  That was 8 years ago and I’ve never been happier.

I’ve often said ‘when you ‘know’, you ‘know”.  I always knew he was the love of my life, it took him a while to realise I was the love of his life.  That day we met for coffee we talked openly and honestly to each other for hours.  We had both felt the same way, he just hadn’t felt he deserved to be loved.

The past 8 years haven’t been easy.  We’ve dealt with stuff that would have broken a less strong, healthy or robust relationship.  But we have continually felt more and more in love with each other.

Can we look back and say we would have done things differently? Of course we can. But there is nothing in either of our pasts that we’re ashamed of, nothing that either of us doesn’t know about the other, and nothing that we know we can’t overcome in the future.

What we have, is what our relationship was based on from that very first night we met when I didn’t like him at all – we have communication, honesty and trust.  We have shared values.

Yes, the way we reconnected is something of a Fairy Tale but there’s truth in the adage that ‘life is stranger than art’.

I’d love to know your Fairy Tale moments.