Eight years. I don't talk about it much, even here. Not sure what there is to say that's useful rather than self-indulgent.
My wife died in 2015. Breast cancer. Diagnosed in March, gone by October. Other people have longer and harder roads to that destination and I'm not claiming mine was particularly hard compared to theirs. It was hard enough for me.
I started about a year after. No big decision about it. I was on a work trip in London, two nights in the same hotel room, and by the second night the quiet was oppressive in a way that the quiet in Edinburgh wasn't, somehow. I found someone online and contacted her. She was in her forties, professional, very straightforward. It helped in a way I hadn't expected and couldn't have explained to anyone.
I've had one regular for the past three years. She's in Edinburgh. About once a month. She doesn't know anything about me beyond the basics, which is how I prefer it. She's good at the job. I'm straightforward as a client. It works.
I noticed early on that I don't book women with dark hair. My wife had dark hair. I'm not going to say more about that than I already have. It's something I noticed and I've let it stand.
The isolation is better now than it was in those first years. My kids are grown and around enough. Work I like. This arrangement that does what it does and asks nothing beyond what's agreed. That's enough. It's sufficient. I'm fine.