Alice and Ioan were not a good match. She craves excitement and the high life. Ioan seems a nice guy but comes across as solid, dependable and sensible. When you first go into a relationship with someone, you overlook the fact that you are coming at the world in completely different ways. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn’t. What seems charming and different in the beginning, palls very quickly.
Alice couldn’t get OP to commit. I think he is bisexual and did absolutely the right thing not promising her anything. Ioan would also not commit until Alice threw an ultimatum. If you have to do that with a guy, you are on the back foot from the start.
Alice thought Ioan was a Prospect. Good looking, getting work. I genuinely think that the both of them thought they would fly to Hollywood and take the town by storm. They quickly found out that the film industry has gazillions of Ioans and Alices to pick from. When the big league didn’t arrive, Alice got bitter. She took it out on Ioan. They should have returned to the UK, and carved out a bigger career, and then tried Hollywood again. But Alice feels she is too big for the UK. They ran before they could walk. They kept going after the jig was up.
Ioan has still had a solid career, he has earned good money, he is well liked in the industry. Most actors don’t get anywhere near that level. Alice was clinging to his shirttails- her career has never amounted to much there, not helped by her hard personality. Despite her being the clingon, Alice lorded it over him as if she were the successful one. You can see that in some of the interviews- he was being interviewed but she took over as if she was the one in the spotlight. She said she was slayed in that famous Lorraine interview- and I truly believe she was.
She could not comprehend that Captain Sensible had got himself out of there and left her. She doesn’t miss Ioan, she misses the person she thought she was, she thought she was unleavable, the one who left, not the one left behind. Her ego couldn’t allow her to move on. She left OP for IG, and she feels aggrieved she made that decision. But OP was never going to commit, so all the looking back with rose tinted glasses is pointless. That is why it has got so grim. She cocked up but wanted someone else to pay. It is her kids that are paying the ultimate price.