The moment I knew: we were a ‘sort of’ couple. But when he went on another date I realised I wanted more - The Guardian

In the early 90s Jamie and I were at university together. I met him through a friend. She was doing a show with him and apparently he had a crush on her. I encouraged her to pursue it because I thought he was cute but nothing ever happened.

About two years later we found ourselves together at a party playing a drinking game. I wasn’t looking for a relationship and, after that party, a few dates with him here and there didn’t eventuate into anything serious. He was doing his law articles and living this very adult life, while I was still in the Melbourne university theatre world. But Jamie was pretty persistent.

We were seeing each other fairly casually for about a year before I got a travel grant to attend drama school in Paris. We decided to stay in touch and see how things went. This was all pre-internet and the only way we could communicate was via snail mail or landline calls. I look back and wonder how we could have been bothered but I’m glad we were. After about a year of this he got a work visa for the UK and I joined him in Gloucester. I didn’t like living in the UK much and decided to head back to Australia. Once again we left it all fairly up in the air.

Eventually he returned to Australia and, while our commitment to each other was pretty ambiguous, we were sort of a couple.

But then I went on a tour with a show and, one night in Canberra, I was trying to get a hold of him relentlessly and wasn’t able to. When I spoke to him the next day he told me he’d been on a date. We’d always been casual but in that moment, I knew that arrangement wasn’t going to work any more. I asked him to call the girl right away and tell her he couldn’t see her again. He did and from then on we started taking the relationship much more seriously.

When I was growing up I don’t remember thinking about who I would end up with, I thought about what I would do. I’m really grateful we took it slowly and gave each other the space to concentrate on our own ambitions and were able to support each other through that.

We were together for years pursuing our careers before we had our twins. And by the time they came along we transitioned really easily into being able to share that responsibility without one person having to sacrifice their professional endeavours – we shared that load equally.

Having small babies is always exhausting but two at once is something else. When they were just a few months old I can remember looking at him in the middle of the night as he held one of our babies while I fed the other and being overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude that he was the person I was sharing this with. I looked at him and thought: “You are a good person, and I am so lucky.”

There are the moments when you think you know you want to spend the rest of your life with someone. But it’s the moments that happen while you’re living that life that tell you you were right.

• Nicole Nabout stars in A Midsummer Night’s Dream by the Australian Shakespeare Company in Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens, 16 December to 17 February

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The moment I knew: we were a ‘sort of’ couple. But when he went on another date I realised I wanted more - The Guardian
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