Why I'm Not Racing Down The Aisle

Her Friends May All Be Doing It – For Better Or Worse – But Sophia Money-Coutts Refuses To ‘settle’

- Sophia Money-Coutts

Last year ended badly for me. In the October, my partner and I broke up; a month later, I had an operation to remove a 6cm cyst that had been squatting on my left ovary like a toadstool. while liberating my ovary, the surgeon found spots of endometriosis – a gynaecological condition that can affect fertility. Plus, I was single again and about to turn 34.

The agony of the break-up was much worse, and lasted far longer, than any physical discomfort from stitches and internal scarring. It was the closest relationship I’d ever known.

Our split (my call) was sudden, and my timing was terrible given that we’d only recently moved in together. But I knew, deep down, that I wasn’t as happy as I should be. I loved him, but he was talking about marriage and I realised I couldn’t say yes forever. I felt more subsumed into his life than he was with my friends and family, and this imbalance made me insecure. I was losing my sense of self because I’d often shrug off what I wanted – whether we were choosing a restaurant on Deliveroo or where to go on holiday – and put his needs above my own.

This was not his fault. A classic people-pleaser, I didn’t realise what I was doing until it had ground me down. ‘It takes two people to f-up a relationship,’ my dad (twice married) has always said. But I admit I should have spoken up sooner about the questions that kept surfacing in my head: why didn’t we hang out with my friends more? Did he not like my siblings? If this was it – my big relationship – why did I often feel weirdly lonely lying next to him at night?