When I said those words almost 15 years ago I truly believed the promise I was making would be an unbreakable bond. I looked forward, like most other brides, to a life of making memories and growing old together. We have weathered sickness, changes in our fortunes and circumstances, been blessed with two wonderful children, but what has broken us is the death of love… the one thing I thought would never happen.

I am still inordinately fond of my husband, despite his still very raw and understandable anger. I appreciate his strengths and I know all his weaknesses. He is still the most wonderful father – the same one who sped from Bristol to Scotland to see his first son minutes after he was born, the same one who was called in from combining in the middle of harvest to meet his second son. The issue is that I do not love him as I want to love a man.

There is no-one else involved. There may never be another man for me to love, but I cannot live without the hope of that spark, the possibility of finding that missing piece from the jigsaw puzzle of my life. We have tried actively for the last 3 years to fan the dying embers back to life: we have been responsible parents and done our very best to maintain the ideal nuclear family unit – but I am spent: I have nothing left to give.

I do not want my children growing up with a mother without verve; watching a marriage without affection – they and I deserve more than that.

The practicalities will be difficult – we have little disposable income and no capital. I am looking for a job (doing anything) which will enable me to save up enough to put down the deposit on a small flat big enough for me and for the children. My husband will remain in the family home: the decision to leave was mine so it seems only right that I should be the one to find a new home. We will share custody and I believe that once the hurt has subsided we can recreate the great parenting team that we were – albeit under separate roofs.

In the meantime we will try to rub along, tease apart finances and chattels and remind ourselves that to conduct ourselves in anything other than a civilised and amicable manner would be a travesty, not only for our children, but for the 18 years we have spent together.