I never cease to be surprised by the fascination people seem to have with my 46-year relationship with my husband David, the father of my two children.

We are good friends, we talk to each other, we like the cinema, the theatre and eating out together. However, it’s not just the enduring camaraderie that intrigues, but the fact that, while still faithfully married to each other, we live many miles apart.

David never seemed to share my passion for the capital but as an ambitious Yorkshire woman, London has always been the place I want to be. David loves the sea and happily lives by the coast.

There’s quite a distance between us but that doesn’t mean our relationship is over. Far from it. The independence we each enjoy makes coming together a comforting pleasure rather than a dull daily grind.

We met in 1980. I was 30 years old, working as a reporter/presenter at BBC South’s early evening news programme, South Today. I’d been married to Brian Murray whose surname, at the age of 21, Jennifer Bailey had been silly enough to adopt. We’d divorced amicably and remained supportive friends until Brian’s death four years ago.

I was free and unattached when the invitation to a party in a beautiful house just outside Southampton came from a young naval officer who had a relationship with a friend of mine.

I had a wonderful time dancing and drinking with no one in particular, choosing to stay the night (alone) as driving was not a good idea. It was only at the breakfast table the next morning that I was bowled over by the man who would become the love of my life.

David, a naval officer, was gorgeous. He was broad- shouldered and fit – a committed rugby player – and during that breakfast never ceased to make me laugh. We competed at telling the best jokes. He won every time.

No approach for a dinner date was made that morning, but I’d learned he too was divorced and unencumbered. I was a little alarmed that he was only 26. Would a four-year age gap be too much?

When the call came to my place of work the day after that Sunday breakfast, I had no doubts about accepting a dinner invitation. He’d been on my mind from the moment we met – age gap or not.

Dinner was a delight. We enjoyed the same kind of food. We drank wine, but not to excess. We were open about our background – both from strains of working class Northerners. He was Cheshire, I was Yorkshire but who cared about being divided by the Pennines? He’d been to Oxford then graduated in electronic engineering at the Navy’s own university. I was not so elevated – no Oxbridge for me – but a good degree in French and drama at Hull.

Most importantly our conversation was easy and engaging, we made each other laugh and, as the evening wore on, there was romance in our eyes. The restaurant was in Lymington, the seaside town in Hampshire where I had bought a house. The trip back to the submarine base in Gosport was long. Would he like to stay and leave early in the morning? He would and that was that.

Everything worked perfectly. As the months passed we seemed to be ideally suited to each other. We were both good cooks and shared the work in the kitchen as well as cleaning and tidying the house.

Most impressive was that first morning when he didn’t have to rush to Gosport, but I was in a hurry to leave to report on a news story. I didn’t have a single ironed shirt. ‘Don’t worry, love,’ he said. ‘Have your shower and I’ll do the shirt.’ Naval officers, it appeared, were expected to look after themselves. I think it was the shirt that marked him down as a keeper.

We never mentioned marriage. It had become almost respectable to cohabit. We’d both been married before and were determined not to do it again to please our parents. My feminist leanings nurtured an objection to women being handed from father to husband. ‘Ms’ was the perfect title, rather than Miss or Mrs.

The long journey from Lymington to Gosport led to the sale of my little house and the joint purchase of a larger home in Hamble, to the east of Southampton.

Even from the start we never tied each other down with demands to spend time together. We didn’t live in each other’s pockets. David had to spend months at sea, completely incommunicado. I often had to travel. Both of us were perfectly content to spend time alone. Then came the ticking of my biological clock.

In 1983 came our first little boy, Ed. We both carried on working and sharing the childcare together with a wonderful nanny, Jeanne. We could not have been happier, despite my mother’s constant nagging about our marital status. Her first words on learning I was pregnant referred to her disappointment that I would become an unmarried mother at the age of 33.

Throughout the 1980s life changed dramatically. I was invited first to BBC Newsnight, then the Today programme, then Woman’s Hour. David retired from the Navy, found work in London and we bought a house in Clapham.

In 1987, as I joined Woman’s Hour, my second son Charlie came along, and for a few years we were all together in the capital. David never appeared to take greatly to London, but I loved it.

Jeanne left us to train as a teacher and we had a couple of far less suitable nannies, after which David dropped a bit of a bombshell: he thought the boys should have a parent at home. It clearly wouldn’t be me, so would I be happy for him to become an at-home father? I agreed and to my amazement it seemed to work, even though we were seen as a little strange by our contemporaries. It was not at all common for a man to take on the responsibility of childcare and the home. I think we saw ourselves as pioneers.

Being the breadwinner was far from easy, it’s an awesome responsibility and became even more difficult when David and I decided we’d like our boys to be educated in the kind of Northern grammar schools from which we had both benefited. The Clapham house was sold, we bought a beautiful farmhouse in the Peak District, the boys went to the brilliant, fee-paying Manchester Grammar School and I rented a small basement flat in Camden Town.

For nearly 20 years David and I spent a great deal of time apart. I worked in London and spent four nights a week in ‘Wuthering Depths’, returning for each long weekend to ‘Wuthering Heights’. I missed my family terribly but had no choice.

As the boys grew up it became clear that living together was not the best idea, given the lack of financial security. David and I married in 2003 in what I suppose has become known as ‘a death bed marriage’. I was 53, David 49, and if one of us died when we were unmarried, the boys, then aged 20 and 16, could lose their family home. As there’s no inheritance tax between a wedded couple, marriage made sense.

All these years on, we’re still married, although no longer living together. We sold the farmhouse when the boys moved on. I bought my little house in London, David has his by the coast.

There was a short period when we thought of making a family home together in Lymington where the love affair had begun, but London kept pulling me back. Both of us are now satisfied with where we live.

Our boys are settled and there when we need them. David and I love and support each other, faithful as ever. We talk on the phone, meet when possible – maybe the theatre in London, or I’ll see the amateur dramatics in which David takes part – and we are the parents at events such as weddings.

Family life is as solid as ever, but we don’t have to endure those little irritations that can make living together a misery. Yes, I know 24 degrees in the sitting room is far too warm on even the coldest days, but I like it. Lights should always be switched off in an empty room because they’re expensive, but I don’t like the dark. I’ve no doubt I load the dishwasher all wrong, but I don’t need someone constantly telling me so.

In a world where bitterness and divorce are so common, have we stumbled on the secret to a long happy marriage? Maybe we have.