COVID SAVED MY MARRIAGE

When Tess Stimson, 49, overheard her husband on the phone, she discovered something shocking about her 20-year relationship

- TESS STIMSON

As I carried our weekly shop into the kitchen with grocery bags looped over my arms one afternoon in January 2022, I could hear my husband, Erik, 50, talking to a friend on the phone. I was focused on unpacking the shopping until my ears suddenly pricked up. ‘ saved my marriage,’ Erik said. ‘If it wasn’t for lockdown, we’d be divorced by now,’ he added. I froze, almost dropping a box of eggs. But it wasn’t because I disagreed with him. It was because this was the first time he’d put into words exactly how I felt, too.

Erik and I had met at a friend’s wedding in Florida in April 2001. I was newly divorced with two young sons from my first marriage, Henry, then seven, and Matt, four. As soon as I saw this 6ft 3in blond, handsome American, I was smitten. Luckily for me, he felt the same way.

As I lived back in London, we had a romantic transatlantic courtship for a year, visiting each other every two or three months. Soon, I fell pregnant and when Lily was born in September 2002, I moved with my children to America.

Erik and I married in 2004 and were both thrilled with our blended family, but the truth was we had virtually no time alone together without the children. The next 18 years sped by in a whirl of homework, family holidays and demanding jobs - me as a writer and Erik as a fundraiser at a non-profit organisation - that meant we had very little intimate couple time. We’d been married for 14 years before we had our first weekend break on our own.

But as the boys finally flew the nest and went off to university, one at a time, I began to worry what would happen when Lily left, too, and it was just me and Erik.