I fell madly in love with a girl who moved to Germany for her job. When I say “madly in love”, I mean I was 17, she was my first girlfriend and a new, crazy passion was running like a wildfire through me. It has to be said that she loved me too, but had trained for years to be a professional ballet dancer. So when she was actually offered that rarest of things, an actual paying job as a ballet dancer, she absolutely had to grab it. We agreed on this totally.
So we carried out a long-distance relationship. When I graduated, I hawked myself around some German advertising agencies (the field I wanted to work in) and got some job offers despite my German being pretty shit at the time. I took one, and a few years later found myself in Frankfurt, married to the ballerina and earning quite well.
We had a pretty good life there, and we only moved back to London because she wanted to retire (aged 30) and I was offered my dream job at what was considered the best ad agency in the world.
Three children and forty very happy years later, she died aged 59.
I loved our time in Germany. I’ve thought of going back, but my kids and grandkids are here, and what’s more, Germany without her wouldn’t be the same. You can only go forwards, never back. But tough though it was at first, we made living abroad work well for us. I recommend it.