At 55, I left my husband and four children, and moved to Morocco

I hadn’t realised quite how much I was sleepwalking through my life, or my marriage, until the day I woke up and knew I couldn’t do it anymore.

I had been with my husband for 18 years. To the outside world, we looked like we had the perfect marriage, the perfect life. We had lived in a wonderful, rambling, old house on the edge of a creek, a house filled with our blended family of six children (four mine, two his). We had an open-door policy, all our friends, all our children’s friends were welcome – there would be food, wine and fun.

But right around the time Covid-19 hit, things started to change. My children, the only ones left in the house, were leaving, and menopause was hitting. My career seemed to have hit the skids – after years of writing bestselling novels, suddenly my novels were no longer making much money, and given that I was the sole provider and breadwinner, I would go to sleep every night with the albatross of financial fear wrapped tightly around my neck.

My husband had been made redundant back in 2011, and initially, I loved having him at home. He became the primary errand-runner, shopper, caretaker of the house, and of the children’s forgotten homework, driving them around town to activities and friend’s houses.

But now those children were grown and leaving, and I was still the only one working. The only thing that had changed significantly was our relationship. All of the laughter and levity, the closeness and warmth that had got us through the past 18 years, seemed to have been gone, replaced with resentment and sadness.

I spent much time in bed. In truth, this had started 10 years prior, when my stepdaughter moved in with us. It was a difficult relationship, as were my relationships with the other two primary women in my husband’s life – his mother and his ex. I might hear that while I had been in town for the day, my husband’s ex had brought a friend and spent the day by our pool; I might emerge from my bedroom in the morning and find my mother-in-law helping herself to breakfast, or showing her friends around our house.

The only place that felt safe was bed. Like a Victorian lady novelist, I took to my bed, with cats, laptop, books, food, and never fully emerged.

Eventually, I could no longer afford our wonderful house. We moved into a tiny, dark cottage, a cottage I had bought before our marriage, a cottage that was my nest-egg, my security, a rental investment that was never intended to be my home.

When I tried to tell my husband this would be a disaster – there was no room for my children to stay during university holidays, no room to do the things I love – host our friends and family for impromptu kitchen suppers, he told me I was wrong.

There was no room in this house for both of us. When I saw him in the house, I asked nothing about his day. I had stopped caring. I had felt valued and loved for a long time, but now, all I felt was diminished, and ignored. I had unwittingly, unknowingly, recreated my childhood in my marriage. We moved past each other like ships in the night.

I didn’t talk to anyone about this. I couldn’t acknowledge it even to myself. A couple of times I tried to talk to him, explain that I loved him, but I knew myself and if X, Y and Z didn’t change, I was scared that I would wake up one day and the switch would be flicked, and once the switch was flicked there was no going back. I was scared, I told him, because I wasn’t there yet, but I was getting there. He wasn’t able to hear me.

Eventually, we had the same argument we had been having for 18 years, but this time, the switch did indeed flick to off. He left in anger, as he always did, driving around for a few hours to cool off, as he always did, coming home and apologising, putting his arms around me, expecting everything to be fine, as it always was. Except this time it wasn’t.

I asked for space and left a few days later, packing three suitcases and flying to Marrakech, a place I had spent much time whilst researching a novel, Sister Stardust, the only place where I felt able to breathe; where I felt alive.

I never went back.

We are now divorced, and the past two and a half years have been spent rewilding myself in Morocco. Lost in constructs I created, in motherhood, in wifedom, I was so busy trying to be all things to all people, I no longer had any idea who I was. And I finally had to heal those childhood wounds that led to me always giving away my power.

I found my peace and healing in Marrakech. Initially, in a little rented place, but now in a lovely little villa where I have planted a garden, and write under a pergola all day, taking a dip in the little pool under a starlit sky. I started intensive somatic therapy, and learned the art of discernment. I became comfortable with being disliked, a hard lesson for a consummate people-pleaser, and learned to say no. Fundamentally, given that we always attract what we think we deserve, I had to learn how to love and value myself, to never again allow myself to stay in a relationship where my boundaries are not respected, where I do not feel valued or loved.

Which is not to say every woman who feels lost and untethered has to pack a suitcase and move to Marrakech. But we should all take the focus off marriage and put it on yourself, create a life where you feel fulfilled and valued; learn how to have a voice loud enough to have your needs met, and open communication with your partner, encourage them to hear you, really hear you, rather than dismiss you as having a menopausal meltdown.

I have no regrets about my divorce. We were clearly on different paths. But whether within a marriage, or without, rebuilding yourself after menopause will bring a purpose and an unparalleled joy, and is the hidden gift of mid-life.

Rewilding by Jane Green (HarperCollins) came out 4 June