Today I have been talking to an old friend who has seen a major change in her life again in the last few months. She’s separated from her husband and is struggling to cope with life as a single parent again.

When I first met her, about ten years ago, she was recently divorced from her first husband. It was one of those depressingly common tales where she became a mother, gave up her job to follow her husband to live in a foreign country then, as she became more isolated, he carried on with his business associates, doing all those things that so many business men do, including playing squash and golf which conveniently gave him the ‘alibi’ he needed for an affair. They separated when their daughters were aged three and one. He remarried and she was literally left ‘holding the babies’ as so often seems to happen. I'm not suggesting (before I get flamed) that men are the only ones to do this, I know there are women who do too.

Her response to this was to find herself a new husband. I don’t know how complicated the decision was for her, whether she actually weighed up the pros and cons of life as a single mum or life married to the first ‘convenient’ man. The price of his hand in marriage was a difficult one for my friend, he insisted the price of a wedding ring and a father for her children was a baby of his own so she married and had another daughter a year later.

It was obvious there was a gaping hole in the marriage where the love should be a long time ago. She was fascinated by my divorce and subsequent relationship with David and confessed in a less than sober moment to being green with envy for the love and lust I was experiencing in my new life.

Years later on, again after being oiled by a few drinks, she confessed to dismal situation of staying with her second husband for the sake of her kids only. No love for her, no love for him, no happiness for either of them. She met someone else and eventually, after a long, tortuous road, she’s left her husband and now has the freedom to date and to love again.

I admire my friend so much for her devotion to her children’s happiness and well-being that she put herself into a miserable relationship to ensure their future and deliver to them a male role model. I cannot begin to imagine how hard that must have been and how much the last ten years or so must have been like a living hell for her.

She asked me today if I would ever marry again and I can’t answer that question because I don’t know if I’ll ever be asked…..but what I can say is that with a little introspection, I know that marriage in itself is fundamentally good, despite the miserable nature of my own and knowing her story. I believe in it as a statement to the world about togetherness and love, even though that gets abused over and over again.

One thing of which I am certain is that weighing up the alternatives, a pound is a pound and to quote from General Public ‘things keep on pounding, pounding’ for me and him. So the pile on the right of this pic may look like a match for the left hand weight, but in fact, it’s fragmented and ever so slightly lightweight by comparison. When I weigh up what I’ve got, it may not be perfect but it is founded on the right thing. I am glad I’ve never been forced into the shoes of my friend. Sometimes I am grateful to be childless. I certainly have the full pound, whether or not there is a certificate to say so.

Last year, our dream came true - BIG TIME and we've never looked back and two years ago I was mooching about in the garden.