Well, I’ve just been taken up the aisle again. Wedding number three, but this time with the added accessory of a seven months pregnant gargantuan gut. Hardly the epitome of blushing bridal virginity I admit. So far so grotesquely 21st century Elizabeth Taylor you may think, but actually this time I think I’ve finally found The One.

HIV was something vaguely to do with ice-bergs and other alarmist advertising campaigns during wedding number 1. I was far too consumed with the avaricious consumption of every issue of Bride and Home to ever imagine the virus would affect my life 7 years later. Husband number 1 had professed to falling in love with me during a University philosophy lecture. Something to do with the heady combination of Descartes and sunlight dancing on my “Fuck off Maggie Thatcher” emblazoned t-shirt I think. With heads so firmly entrenched up our own arses God knows our relationship was destined to fail. But I glided up the aisle in my meringue, convinced that my marriage to my socialist worker prince charming would last forever.

Marriage number 2, in the grand scheme of things was probably my Big Mistake. My defining moment of gut wrenching stupidity. Hated by all of my friends, husband number 2 was a loathsome American, with a penchant for college boys and excessive alcohol consumption. I suppose the wedding was fun, but before the confetti settled we soon discovered that the only thing we had in common was our mutual loathing for each other. And a couple of months later our HIV positive diagnosis.”

His foray into the corporate world and discovery of ever-so amenable assistants soon scuppered my notion of eternity.

Marriage number 2, in the grand scheme of things was probably my Big Mistake. My defining moment of gut wrenching stupidity. Hated by all of my friends, husband number 2 was a loathsome American, with a penchant for college boys and excessive alcohol consumption. I suppose the wedding was fun, but before the confetti settled we soon discovered that the only thing we had in common was our mutual loathing for each other. And a couple of months later our HIV positive diagnosis. “No other man will want you now you’re HIV positive, so we’d better stay together” he said, and, ludicrously for a while I believed him, wallowing in my twisted misconception. It took me two long years to finally achieve some clarity. I was not going to allow HIV to stand in the way of me living a fulfilling life and certainly not let it shackle me to a deranged American tosser.

So here I am 3 weeks into marriage number 3. Unlike my last nuptial foray, this time its taken 6 and a half years of diligent relationship building to finally tie the knot. Curiously I appear to be more dizzyingly and solidly in love than ever before in my chequered relationship history. Admittedly, at the start of our relationship I never imagined it had any chance of longevity – I assumed once he knew about my HIV status he would inevitably scarper. I nevertheless disclosed after a month of dating in every South London girl’s comfort zone – a McDonalds car park. I suppose the rationale was if he did dump me I would at least have the consolation of a Big Mac Meal. Luckily he didn’t. When asked to guess the terrible secret I needed to tell him, his first attempt was “you used to be a man?” HIV was therefore quite an anti-climax.

I’d be lying if I said it’s been six and a half years of complete Mills and Boon bliss. His lurid workaholism through much of our relationship may have led to some issues for me, and no doubt he could rattle off a long list of my short-comings, but HIV has never been a contributing factor to any of our problems. He may patrol the house, looking for misdemeanours of the untidiness kind, like Captain Von Trapp on crack, but he remains the most beautiful, compassionate, extraordinary man I’ve ever met and is now my very best friend. “Solid as a rock” we are, in the uplifting words of Ashford and Simpson. So I get off referring to him as my husband, and flashing my slightly obscene engagement rock, but hey, I’m a newly wed so it’s my prerogative (in the words of Bobby Brown, or Britney if we want to get truly squalid). A toast to my husband – it ends here with you.