Living alone after divorce can feel like liberation. But trust me, it turns into aching loneliness

Like a pit pony breathing fresh air for the first time after years underground — that’s how I felt when I started living alone after 20 years of marriage and bringing up two sons. 
It was 1987. My husband Neville and I had separated and my sons Tom, 18, and Will, 19, had gone to university, all at the same time.
The sensible solution was to downsize from our beautiful Georgian house by the river in Richmond, Surrey, to a three-bedroom flat in fashionable Notting Hill, West London.

Empty nest syndrome can be worse for divorced parents

The sensation as I fled the former marital home and opened the door of my very own flat, chosen and bought all by myself, was a mixture of relief and fear.