As I rapidly approach my fourth decade, I have started to look back on the past ten years of my life and ask myself, what went wrong?

I was married young - a veritable child bride - to a successful city slicker. From the outside life looked rosy; a beautiful home and a comfortable lifestyle, we were living in the hedonistic glory days of the financial boom, before bankers became vilified and blamed for all the world's ills.

My own crisis subsequently unfolded, just one year after our son was born, my husband died. With my world turned upside down, the path I had mapped out for myself came to an abrupt and heart wrenching halt. 

At no point in those heady germinal days of marriage did I ever envisage returning to my former single life, raising a child solo or re-entering the disastrous world of dating. 

But life doesn't always turn out quite the way we planned.

*All names have been changed