Midlife guide to…

Unimoons

Old-fashioned romance… whatever happened to that?

Ah, now that the cult of the individual reigns supreme, we don’t have time for such frippery as love and happily ever after. Even newly betrothed pairs are apparently jetting off on individual honeymoons without their beloved.

But you’ve planned everything else together, the wedding, the marital abode, your… life. Why stop at check-in?

Well, it all sounds rather sensible to me, slotting in some proper “me” time before two become one for all eternity.

Do these solomooners actually like one another?

It’s part of a lifelong couple’s contingency plan. These trips offer the newly-weds an arsenal of interesting chat to competitively fire at one another over an M&S Meal Deal, when things get really parched.

So, going it alone will help liven up married bliss, then, will it?

Mystique really does trump a week in Mustique, I’m afraid…

So, say I’d prefer riding the Transsiberian Express than a droll coupled-up allinclusive in Fuerteventura, that’ll be entirely acceptable to my significant other?

Apparently so.

How did this madness come about?

A Dublinbased couple decided to embark on two totally separate excursions, the bride jetting off to Canada and the groom (and his posse) headed to France – and never the twain did meet.

Doesn’t sound like a great foundation for a long and prosperous pairing.

Well, it’s certainly pragmatic. Ms O’brien explained her way of thinking: “Neither of us wanted to be where the other one was.” Here’s hoping absence makes the heart grow fonder…