My husband Tom and I have been married for 42 years. When people hear this the comments come thick and fast. Everything from ‘How wonderful!’ to ‘You don’t get that long for murder ha ha’ .

When people ask how we have managed to stay married for that long I usually say in a joking manner ‘We just didn’t get divorced!’ I can honestly say that there were times in our marriage that that was true. Now I am able to say that I’m glad that I didn’t get divorced because now I know that having Tom in my life makes my life greater. So what has changed?

I thought I was happy with my life. Married to my teenage sweetheart. Two great kids and a career as a Child and Family Mental Health Nurse. And to be honest I was probably happier than most.

So when menopause hit (literally) in my 50th year and I suddenly became depressed, anxious and panicked. I just didn’t get it.

As a young 19 year old mother, parenting came naturally to me … until I started to listen to everyone else. Everyone had a point of view about how a parent should be. How to get it right. How to avoid being wrong. And amongst a litany of judgment, I checked out all the parenting books just to be sure, and before I knew it, I was I was doing everything I could to be the perfect mum and avoid being a bad mum.