Checklist

"Have you finished?" he asked me again. This time I didn’t even bother to reply. Quite obviously I had not, because my pen was still poised over the paper, ready to jot down point number 7 on the ‘likes’ list.

"How much are you writing" he continued. "For God’s sake Julie, that’s like a novel! Am I so bad?"

"I haven’t got to the dislikes yet" I snapped back, and knew he was rising from his seat to leave the room.

"Let me know when you’ve done" he commented as the door closed behind him.

I looked up from my notes. He had taken his list with him, I noted. It had also taken him less than five minutes to complete both of his lists, and here I was still working out how to limit mine to only 10 points per category! It seemed apparent to me that he was not taking this seriously.

The problems between us had no definite start date as far as I could see. However hard I may try, I have to be honest and say that no one incident caused us to behave differently towards one another. Perhaps a series of small issues combined to make things different somehow.

Maybe it was about three months ago when we returned from our holiday.

We had been away with friends. Well, I say friends, but neither of us had spent much time with Olivia. She is Stan’s new girlfriend, and Stan is Adam’s closest friend. They have been friends since college, and I now know Stan very well. He and Olivia had been dating for only a month or so when we went on holiday together. Adam told me that Stan had felt the time was right to test their relationship with a holiday together.

It did put a bit of a strain on the holiday proceedings for, as well as Stan and Olivia gelling, so to speak, Adam and I had to do so with her too.

It was so apparent that they were new lovers. All touchy, feely, and making eyes at one another! Adam was sometimes quite scathing about it all when we were alone. He could not see why they had to behave "as if they are joined at the lips" as he put it. I didn’t see it that way. In a way I felt a little envious of their love. Adam and I never held hands in public any more, and as for a kiss or cuddle…no,no,no.

We once had, but not now. Why, I wondered? Everything about us told people we are a couple. We live together, holiday together, socialise together. Why didn’t everything we did together tell ME we were as much in love as ever? It was as if we didn’t need the demonstrations of love any more. It was an accepted fact, why show it?

Yes, I think that holiday could have been the start of our troubles. To be surrounded by so much open affection from Olivia and Stan just made a stark comparison with me and Adam. I noted that we don’t even sit together on the sofa in our lounge! Adam has his chair, and I have mine, and the sofa sits empty between us night after night.

After the holiday, we seemed to start socialising separately too. Adam always saw Stan once a week, but after the holiday it became Friday night as well as one other evening. After a heavy Friday night Adam would prefer to be indoors on Saturday might. Our night. Whatever else we did during the week, we had always kept Saturday night for our night together.Now, Adam wanted to stay home instead of making the effort to go out with me as we had always done, and I felt snubbed.

In the meantime our work and home lives plodded along much the same as anybody else’s I suppose, but I did begin to feel that we were both becoming apathetic about us! Our relationship had started out by two people falling in love and wanting to be together exclusively. The house, cars, possessions were just the trappings of life. Where were we in all this? What had become of the two lovers who had started out on this journey? We seemed to have lost our way.