Today I wandered into Centrelink
to find out if I had any government benefits coming my way. There’s a myriad of schemes - parenting allowance, child care allowance, rent assistance, family payment, to help families make ends meet. I pay quite huge amounts of taxes, and wondered if given my recent change in circumstances any of it could start flowing back at all. I wanted to make sure that I was getting everything that was owing to me, and nothing that wasn’t.

I compiled the documents suggested on the appointment confirmation notice - evidence of having two kids, evidence of my residency in Australia, income, that kind of thing. Marie, my designated Commonwealth Government Employee for this occasion, took one look at my income and said Nup, you’re earning way too much to get your hands on any of this. Ah well, fair enough. I’m not exactly scrounging. Thankfully she didn’t call me a greedy moneygrabbing bastard for even daring to ask.

Once we’d taken the thirty seconds to work out that I was eligible for nothing, Marie got chatting about self-employment, obviously eyeing up the income from my tax return and deciding that she was in the wrong job. She ended up telling me about her husband who’s working in computer networking, and asking what he could do to go contracting and join the ranks of those pulling in a hefty hourly rate.

She also said it made a pleasant change to see someone in Centrelink who had a half-decent income! Maybe she gets sick of dealing with all the poor people - I don’t know… maybe she really is in the wrong job.

Have you ever encountered something that seemed really scary at first, then seemed to go okay for a while, then bounced back to be even more scary and crazy than you ever expected? Well my separation is turning out like that.

I advise you to sit down if you’re not already doing so. Okay, so probably most of you are already sitting down. But if you’re not, if you’re at some kind of public access coin operated Web terminal or something, just brace yourself. Because this is a shocker. And it’s all true. Okay, I’m describing what’s happened from my perspective, but I don’t think I’ve bent the truth here - and I’m not making any of this up.

Okay, how do I break this? L, formerly my wife, now my almost-ex-wife, has gone. Left. Flown the coop. Departed. Shot through. Scarpered. And I’ve moved back to our home to look after the kids.

See, you didn’t expect that, did you?

In a move that has surprised absolutely everybody, she’s essentially emigrated, gone to live in France with an old flame, some bloke she knew around ten years ago, before I knew her. She first mentioned the idea to me a couple of months ago. It’s probably fair to say that while it wasn’t the underlying cause behind our break-up, it was the concrete block that broke the camel’s back: it’s what caused the separation to happen now rather than six months ago. I mean, what would you do when faced with "I want to go and live in France with my old boyfriend"?

So, how did this happen? Here’s the blow-by-blow guide. First, we agreed to separate. I moved out. Four days later, Monsieur Le Frog arrived to visit. (Sorry to any French who might be offended by this, but as you’ll understand, this bloke is not my favourite person in the world right now. And since I know precious little about him, I have to denigrate him in some way.)

Over the space of a couple of weeks, they decided it was on, it was going to happen. No amount of logic or arguing with her seemed to do any good.

I told her she couldn’t take the kids. That doing this would mean taking them away from most of their family, all their friends, their culture, their language, their home. Taken to a strange country where they nor their mother would have any rights to government services or benefits. And most importantly, they would live in a country that has no known equivalent to Four’n'Twenty, Play School, Footy or Cold Chisel. It’s simply not right for Australians to grow up not knowing the words to Cheap Wine.

Consultation with the appropriate people (in particular a red hot legal eagle) and a quick inspection of the Family Court web site determined that it would just about be a walk over in my favour if it came to a custody dispute. She agreed, said she wouldn’t fight for custody. But, she said, I’m still going anyway. She said she wanted her shot at happiness.

I was flabbergasted. So was everybody else. Here is a woman who formerly could’ve been a prime candidate for Mother Of The Year. She wouldn’t let her kids go to crèche because she didn’t want to be without them. Now she was about to walk away from her children. I’m all for taking shots at happiness, because basically I would like everyone to be happy. But when it’s that kind of cost, it just sounds like pure selfishness to me.

And all for a bloke she knew briefly ten years ago. A bloke who is married with (older) kids of his own. The whole thing seems like the plot of a bad soap opera.

I almost thought it wouldn’t happen. But on Friday, the day arrived. We went to the airport. She said goodbye, then walked through the doors, out of our lives. Presto, I got my sideways promotion to Single Dad. What a strange situation to find yourself in.

The weekend has actually gone very well. A few weeks’ practice at (a) living alone and (b) looking after the kids single-handedly over weekends has paid off. With the support of family, friends, relatives, and the services of what looks to be a very good child care centre, this might actually work quite well. Time will tell.

• She eventually came back, and after a few months, an amicable situation was worked out.

On Friday night I met up with a few ex-work buddies for a drinkie at PJ O’Brien’s. We had a merry old chat about the good ol’ days when we worked together. After a couple of hours some went on to a show, and the three of us remaining decided to move to another Irish pub, Pugg Mahone’s, renowned for having a livelier atmosphere. We were going to meet my friend Naomi and a couple of her friends there too, but despite a mobile call or two to try and co-ordinate things, it turns out they went to PJ O’Brien’s some time after we’d gone.

But no matter, the second pub certainly did have a livelier atmosphere. Instead of a hi fi system playing "My Sharona" every hour, it had a covers band that managed to get the crowd singing along to every song, which can be quite an achievement depending on how much alcohol has been consumed. They didn’t even have to play "My Sharona".

In the case of my mate John, it was quite a substantial amount. After a little while, he was looking quite, quite happy. Eventually it was apparent that he’d been overdoing it somewhat, to the point where I think it would be fair to describe him as rat-arsed. One moment he was introducing me to a girl I ended up having a chat and a dance with, the next moment we saw him slumped over another girl, who was in a similar state of consciousness! And the pair of them (they seemed inseparable) were being carried out by security. Oh dear. John got home okay, but a little the worse for wear.

Anyway, had a great time, though by the (comparatively early) end of the night, I was feeling pretty out of it too.

• What’s this, Daniel dancing with a strange girl in a pub? Yeah well, I’m single now, remember…