MY HUSBAND LIVES ON A DIFFERENT CONTINENT

Against the odds, Dr Noreen Nguru, 32, and her partner are now Mr and Mrs - but still living 1,300 miles apart

- EIMEAR O'HAGAN

Dancing in my husband Amine's Domoradias arms at our wedding last October, I felt like I was dreaming. I could scarcely believe that, after spending 18 months of our two-year relationship apart, separated by lockdowns and border closures, we were finally husband and wife. At the back of my mind, though, I knew that soon we'd have to say goodbye and, eight months on, we're still living 1,300 miles apart.

Amine, 26, and I met in September 2019 when I was on a work trip to Morocco for my travel and wellness business, which I combined with my job as a locum NHS doctor. He was the night manager at my riad guest house and there was an instant connection.

After spending hours talking at the hotel about our careers, ambitions and future travel dreams, we shared a kiss and promised we'd stay in touch. Having been single for five years, I flew home to the UK gutted that I'd finally met a clever, attractive, kind man...who lived in another country.

We spoke every day by phone, and the following month I flew back to see him and we officially became a couple.

VIRTUAL DATING

Over the next few months, I visited Morocco three more times and Amine took me on road trips, showed me around art galleries, and taught me how to make Moroccan food.

The final trip was in January 2020 - and then the pandemic struck.

FaceTime and voice notes were all we had in place of real-life contact and intimacy. It was an incredibly difficult time, with me working on the NHS frontline and Amine unemployed because tourism had collapsed and he was living off savings while he looked for a new job.

He was my rock that year after long, gruelling shifts in PPE. And I would reassure him when he was feeling low that better times were coming for both of us.