Single At 58…​​​​​​​And Living Alone

After separating from her husband, Jane Alexander couldn’t wait to move into a house of her own. But it wasn’t all she’d hoped for…

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As I close the door behind me, my heart starts thudding. My hands are shaking as I turn the key, carefully double-checking the front door is locked.

The bare floorboards creak as I walk down the hallway, but otherwise, the house is silent, almost eerily quiet. It’s the first night in my new home and I’m shocked at how wobbly I feel.

I’d been desperate to have my own place for years. However, like one in six estranged couples in the UK, my husband Adrian and I had been forced to stay living together after our split due to financial constraints. Now, finally, three years after we decided to separate, following 25 years of living as a couple (23 of them married), I had a place to call my own – a terraced house in Exeter.

I should have been overjoyed but, as my moving-in date approached, I found myself increasingly anxious. My son James, 19, had left for university, so I was not only a middle-aged singleton, but an empty-nester too. Adrian travelled a lot for work, so I was used to being alone, but I hadn’t officially lived on my own for nearly 30 years.

Things that go bump...

The last time I had my own home, my life was wildly different. I was in my twenties, working in a busy newspaper office in London, with friends and family close by. Now I’m in my late fifties, freelancing from home. My parents died several years ago, and my friends and remaining family are scattered all over the world. I’m far more isolated – and far older.

That first night, I lie in bed. Little noises make me jump: the grumble in the radiator as the boiler switches off; the wheeze of a floorboard as it eases back into place; a motorbike revving in the street. I don’t nod off until dawn.