However, I'm sure all my "life" experiences will make me a better Captain when I get to the coveted Left Seat. - More so than walking out of an ab-initio course with 200 hrs, and straight into the RHS of a jet.
Could you possibly expand on this? I'm interested to know why you think writing lots of letters, becoming a part time FI and having a relationship break up would make you a better captain than someone who has done a full time ab-initio course. At the moment I can't see a great amount of merit in that statement.