‘We never dwelt on our years apart’

Joanne Berry, 55, and her husband Mike, 56, live in Kent. They have three children. ‘The truth is I never got over mike’

In the beginning, Joanne and Mike Berry’s romance seemed like something from a storybook. After meeting at work in 1987, they married six years later and became parents to their first son in 1994, and their second in 1996. Their daughter was born two years later.

‘I was a stayat-home mum while Mike had a stressful job running a business with 10 offices,’ says Joanne. ‘Although on the surface it seemed like we had it all, we both got so immersed in our different worlds we stopped communicating.

‘I felt invisible. So, I told Mike it was over, and moved out with the children. Six weeks later I started dating a man in his 20s – I was 41– who I was with for five years.

‘Mike was incredibly hurt and filed for divorce.’ Eight years later, Joanne started dating a man closer to her own age and realised that the attraction was that he reminded her of Mike. Then, at a school parents’ evening, Joanne realised Mike was flirting with her.

’Before we knew it we were sneaking around, dating,’ she says.

They waited five months before telling the children, who were then 17, 15 and 13. ‘We told them the news on Christmas Eve 2011. They said they’d already guessed.

‘My sister kept asking me if I was sure about getting back together and a couple of Mike’s friends were sceptical, but we had no doubts.’

Mike moved in a month later and they’ve never dwelt on the years when they were apart.

‘We accept that this is what happened,’ Joanne explains. ‘We make an effort now to be affectionate with one another and to spend time together.’

They now realise they needed their time apart to appreciate what they had.

‘The truth is I never really got over Mike,’ says Joanne. ‘I think I knew – and hoped – we’d be together again, so when it happened it was obviously right.

‘It was a painful but necessary moment in our lives, but it taught us what’s important.’