Jim Rogers thought the great love story of his life had already happened.
He was married to Lorna, the woman he describes as his soulmate, and together they were raising three children under the age of three.
Then Lorna was diagnosed with melanoma.
Less than a year later, she was gone.
Jim was left grieving while trying to raise three very young children on his own.
He had no idea that another extraordinary love story was waiting for him (Guardian).
A Holiday He Didn’t Want to Take
Eventually, Jim’s parents persuaded him to take a holiday in the Canary Islands.
He did not particularly want to go.
At the hotel pool, he met an Englishman named Tyler.
Tyler was openly gay.
Jim says he had never knowingly met an openly gay man before.
They became friends.
After the holiday ended, that friendship followed them back to England.
They began spending hours talking on the phone each night.
Jim found himself thinking about Tyler constantly.
Then, during a visit to London, something happened that forced him to reconsider everything he thought he knew about himself.
They were standing together in an elevator when Tyler reached for Jim’s hand.
“It felt electric,” Jim later recalled.
Then Tyler kissed him.
Jim had never previously experienced romantic feelings for a man.
Now he was falling in love with one.
The Boyfriend Who Bought the House Next Door
Falling in love was one thing.
Figuring out how to build a life together in their conservative English village was another.
Jim did not feel able to simply move Tyler into the family home and live openly as a couple.
At one point, he told Tyler that perhaps the only way their relationship could work was if the house next door ever came up for sale.
Then it did.
Tyler bought it.
From the street, the arrangement looked perfectly ordinary.
A widowed father lived in one house.
A single man lived next door.
Behind the houses, things looked very different.
A panel was removed from the fence separating the gardens.
The two properties became privately connected.
Outside, Jim and Tyler were neighbors.
Behind the houses, they were building a relationship and a family together.
It is the kind of detail that sounds invented for a romantic movie.
For Jim and Tyler, it was simply how they found a way to be together.
Becoming a Family Wasn’t Instant
The transition was not effortless for everyone.
Jim’s children were also processing the loss of their mother while learning that their father had fallen in love with a man.
His daughter Daisy has spoken candidly about initially struggling when she understood the nature of Jim and Tyler’s relationship.
Over time, however, Tyler became an important part of the family.
Daisy has described him as someone who helped bring happiness back into her father’s life after an almost unimaginable loss.
The family later moved to Australia.
Jim and Tyler eventually married.
Today, they have been together for around 25 years.
Another Challenge, Faced Together
Their story now includes another difficult chapter.
Jim was diagnosed with younger-onset Alzheimer’s disease at the age of 55.
Tyler is still beside him.
Jim has since become a prominent advocate for people living with dementia and their families.
He also co-hosts the Hold the Moment podcast, where he speaks openly about life with the disease.
His new memoir, Holding on to Happiness, written with his daughter Millie Robinson, is published September 1.
The book gives Jim a chance to look back at a life containing grief, parenthood, unexpected love, secrecy, family and another major diagnosis.
Through all of it, Tyler remains part of the story.
Jim has said that Tyler has “rescued” him more than once.
That does not diminish the love Jim had with Lorna.
If anything, his story is powerful because both relationships mattered enormously.
One love story ended far too soon.
Another arrived in a form Jim had never imagined for himself.
It began beside a hotel pool.
It became real with a touch of the hand in an elevator.
It survived by hiding behind two neighboring houses and an open garden fence.
And 25 years later, Jim and Tyler are still facing whatever comes next together. ❤️🌈
📷 @\_jimr
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