Not everybody automatically fits in to the place and society they were born into.  Some people don’t even fit in to the time they were born into, but there is less that can be done for those poor buggers.

For the rest of us there is the option to change locations.  In my case hemispheres. I have now joined the drifting, misfit ranks of travellers and ex-pats.  Currently in Ecuador for a nine month stint as an English teacher and then hopefully seeing as much of the rest of Latin America as I can afford on the cashed in, tax-free, 25% lump sum of my pathetic pension plan.  Ideally travelling even further afield.  Asia.  Australasia.

But tonight I am sitting in the soupy heat of Guayaquil waiting for my husband to arrive from England on a late night flight.  And I have no idea how I feel about this, or what I expect from this visit.

When I first told him my plan to qualify as an ESL teacher and become a glamorous world traveller he completely lost it.  But when I then proposed the logical next step – we divorce as we have nothing in common, don’t want the same things, don’t even want to live in the same place – he suddenly back peddled.  Told me he was proud of what I was trying to do.  Suddenly started being really nice to me.

And once I’d made it out here three months ago, he told me he was going to come out and visit me.  See what all the fuss was about.  So in about an hour’s time he will be here.

Am I looking forward to seeing him?  I think so.  I still care about him.  I told him he was my best friend and I hoped we could part amicably and remain friends.  He did not seem to see this as a compliment, although later he told me that having thought about it I was also his best friend.

From my experience when I still practised family law, and from what I have seen of friends’ divorces, couples usually split up because they hate each other.  Or because one or both of them have a new partner.  Or a combination of all the above.  None of this was true in our case.

Having had relationships where I was pretty much crawling after guys and hanging on to their feet as they walked away, I didn’t really want to put my husband through that.  As long as he didn’t try to prevent me from going, I was prepared to just leave our relationship to be sorted out later.

Looks like “later” may now be here.