Dee and Joe Ansah, 71 and 76, have been together for 32 years. They were close friends for more than a decade before they became a couple
When Dee and Joe became neighbours in 1973, it wasn’t love at first sight. “He moved in to my block of flats with his wife and their two children,” says Dee, who was a single mother at the time. “I didn’t see him in a romantic way.” There were a lot of young families in this block in south-west London and it was a tightknit community. “We were neighbours first,” says Joe. “Then we became friends. It was a really nice place to live.” A year later Dee met a new partner and moved to a house nearby, but they never lost contact. “Joe and I stayed friends and we’d often take the children out for meals.”
The relationship remained platonic, but Joe says it was clear they enjoyed doing the same things. “It wasn’t romance but we were always happy going out as a group with our families,” he says. “I worked shifts for London Underground, so I’d often take her boys out when I wasn’t working.” Dee went on to have two more children with her new partner, never imagining that there could be anything more than friendship between her and Joe.
Continue reading...from Lifestyle | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Mggd24