I'm 59 and moving in with the love of my life. I'd forgotton what it feels like to be cared for. But his house was a disaster… until we came up with a radical solution

Uprooting my life at the age of 59 to move hundreds of miles to my fiance’s home? It seemed like such a good idea… until, on moving day, I came face to face with the enormous painting of a rooster in his hall.

‘I thought you were going to get rid of that,’ I said.

‘My son gave me that when he was 12,’ replied Gavin defensively.

‘It’s a gigantic cockerel,’ I bit back. ‘Its eye follows you around the room. I will not be able to invite anyone over, ever.’

It was as if I had stabbed him. ‘You’ve made me throw everything out! I have nothing left!’ For a moment, I wondered if it was reasonable to break up over someone’s taste in home furnishings.

Moving in with a partner is challenging at the best of times but, in midlife, when one has become partial to certain pleasures – in my case, late-night baths with lavender oil; in Gavin’s, eating supper standing up in the kitchen – it can shake the foundations of one’s being.

Contrary to popular opinion, those of us in middle age are far from uniformly staid or fearful of change. In fact, so many friends of the same age confess that they long to try something really new – not just because they’ve divorced or are widowed or lonely, but because a passionate life involves risk.

And I’ve learned that midlife is, surprisingly, the perfect time to take risks. Kids have left for work or study, freeing you up; careers are established; and your strength levels – if you’ve looked after yourself – are still high.

Moving in with a partner is challenging at the best of times but, in midlife, when one has become partial to certain pleasures it can shake the foundations of one’s being

After three years of dating while living in different counties, Gavin and I had started to find the wait between meetings agonising. A music producer by trade, he couldn’t leave Wolverhampton as his recording studio is local and his parents had relocated here from London to be close to his two children from his first marriage.

I couldn’t leave Folkestone until my daughter Bethesda had been safely installed at university, which happened at the start of the academic year last October.

This was momentous because I’d devoted almost two decades to caring for her, from hand-making her baby shampoos to home-schooling her while working full-time. I remained celibate for eight years because I would not risk destabilising her life. I was so overwhelmed when she was accepted by Oxford University last August that I screamed.

But far from experiencing ‘empty nest syndrome’ when she was gone, I was surprised to find myself experiencing an insistent feeling I hadn’t experienced for decades. While I missed her ferociously, I also felt free. I began to feel like myself again – the self I was before motherhood, who did anything she wanted to.

And, for me, that involved moving in with Gavin. We met three years ago when I went to record a song in his studio. Neither of us was looking for love – but we couldn’t stop talking. He is just so funny, so sharp, and the sweetest man I’ve ever known.

The distance between us meant we came to know each other slowly, but the leisurely pace turned out to be romantic, unlike the smash’n’grab sex now generally associated with courtship.

I didn’t see his house for well over a year, as he took me to hotels. This was his way of keeping me at a distance; the hotels made it all seem more like a holiday than real life. We flew to Iceland, Italy, Mallorca and Greece and had the time of our lives.

There may have been another reason, too, because Gavin’s bachelor pad was a disaster – quite unlike my lovely two-bed flat in Folkestone, which he visited long before I saw his place.

Gavin’s bachelor pad was a disaster – quite unlike my lovely two-bed flat in Folkestone, which he visited long before I saw his place

My daughter once called my flat ‘a cross between a walk-in wardrobe and a suburban library’. I had fairy lights and pink poplin sheets, candles, lavender sachets on hangers, and a meticulously curated shoe collection. I was fiercely proud of my vintage gilded flatware, Irish linen napkins and Spode Blue Colonel dinner service.

In contrast, when I first visited Gavin’s home in late 2023, I remember gasping at the desk heaped with recording contracts, the gym equipment everywhere, and the mountain of dirty black motorcycle T-shirts competing for dominance with a multi-layered grey cat box in the kitchen.

Nunchucks dangled from the exercise bike, a replica Samurai sword sat by a great jostle of Converse sneakers – and, in the living room, Dracula-style crimson curtains bathed Gavin’s speakers, which were the size of small refrigerators and louder than a landing jet, in an eerie light.

Initially, I was too burned out by life as a working, home-schooling mother to be horrified. And I could always return to my haven.

Just like our homes, we were comically different. Gavin spent his days chugging Italian coffee and eating takeaway curries in a noisy studio; I mostly spent mine in silence, reading for work as I ate apricots in sunlight filtered by voile curtains. But it worked.

In November 2023 he proposed, although we waited until recently to actually move in together. Gavin hired two men to fix and repaint the house in preparation.

Sensing my anxiety – I really was overwhelmed by having to move my library – he arranged for one of his recording engineers to drive down and pack my books for me. But he was flabbergasted when the boxes were unloaded, eventually filling a room to the ceiling (this after I’d donated some 500 volumes to charity).

‘Oh my God,’ he said, ‘you’re a hoarder! Sea journeys in the time of Captain Cook? Italian witchcraft during the Renaissance? Surely all these books can’t be necessary?’

After weeks of unpacking and sorting through 20 years of parenting detritus, writing and recording, Antonella and Gavin’s home has finally come together – but they keep separate bedrooms

His Dracula curtains were evicted, along with the capiz shell lamps, most of his weapons, and all of the mismatched furniture. In their place were pleated teal velvet curtains, smoked glass lights and healthy plants.

But the process was far from easy. Gavin developed palpitations over the first few weeks of our cohabitation, while my anxiety manifested as extreme insomnia.

Over the coming weeks, the washing machine worked day and night to process Gavin’s motorcycle T-shirt mountain. A cleaner was called in. He bought a dehumidifier and an air purifier.

Merging households with a partner in midlife has been very different to my reckless, earlier experiences. In my youth, I didn’t really care whether relationships worked long-term or not – it was more about the adventure. Emotional stability, tenderness and kindness matter more now.

That’s not to say we don’t clash. In fact, we’ve come up with a radical solution to preserve everyone’s independence: separate bedrooms. These are not for sleeping (we share my bed), but more like mental health lairs. Gavin’s room is all naked wood, white sheets and tech; mine is dusty pink silk, gilded mirrors and Georgian furniture.

Now, after weeks of unpacking and sorting through 20 years of parenting detritus, writing and recording, our home has finally come together. Our physical symptoms have eased.

‘This is the first time in my life I’ve looked forward to coming home,’ Gavin said the other day.

I’m still stunned to find him meeting my needs in innumerable little ways – driving me to the hospital in the middle of the night after I’d tripped and fallen down the stairs, buying me my favourite foods, massaging my shoulders.

I’d forgotten what it feels like to be cared for. Being loved without complication feels like the greatest luxury I’ve ever known.

Even the rooster has migrated. After a workman asked why there was a ‘portrait of a huge cock on the wall’, Gavin finally conceded that it should be relegated to his bedroom.

So, for the first time in years, domestically, all is harmony. I couldn’t be happier about that.

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I’m 59 and moving in with the love of my life. I’d forgotton what it feels like to be cared for. But his house was a disaster… until we came up with a radical solution