Lesley Ure – Adjusting to the return of your submariner partner

I think the key is you have to allow each other to be who you are. You can’t control the other person because everyone will cope with things in their own way and they will need what they need in order to get through things.

So, for example, I didn’t realise that before he was due to go away, I would slowly detach myself, so I didn’t realise this. I became more distant, probably became more challenging and it was almost like … this is going to sound really strange and I don’t know if other people would be able to relate to it, if I didn’t like him very much when he left, that would be easier for him to go.

I think many years later, I wish I’d seen this before, I did see a book that explained this kind of emotional response and how we will detach ourselves and I suppose that was my way of coping.

My way of coping was to detach myself in the situation and focus on what mattered and that was the needs of my children when their dad was away and how we would kind of manage that, so and again, this is going to sound really awful when I look back now but we didn’t do things such as write each other Valentines cards if he was away, or Birthday cards.

We didn’t do those things and I’m wondering if maybe that’s why we did ultimately cope with it so well was because we just cut ourselves off and got on with it.