The Good Wife

I am a wife. I consider myself a good wife. Or even a Good Wife. I make this claim because I know what it is to be a poor wife.
Sadly my first husband bore the brunt of my learning - by trial and error mostly - okay by error mostly. I call Gavin my first husband now. I have much experience of Exs and I don't think it's an appropriate word to describe a previous spouse. Yes it feels good at the beginning when we want to reinforce our decision and forge a separate identity. 


But they are never really our ex-spouse. How can it be so? I have a son with my first husband. My husband has two sons with his last wife. I know that such bonds cannot be broken, no matter how hard we try to destroy them, like an animal who would chew off his own leg to gain his freedom.


I have some experience of divorce. I remember hearing Billy Connolly's version of "D.I.V.O.R.C.E" and loving the words, too young to know what they meant - just that they were funny in his hands.


So I was with my first husband for thirteen years. Something I regard as a success. We were young when we met - 17 and 18. We grew up together and grew apart. I am not surprised. We each brought a lot of baggage to our marriage. It was interesting, and fun, and challenging and I wouldn't change it for the world. Which brings me to my current husband.


I have had the pleasure of knowing Chris for some thirteen years - as long as I was with Gav. It was love at first sight and I don't write that lightly. We met when his then business partner Bill double booked an appointment I had to view a clothing collection and fobbed me off on Chris. Despite having visited their showrooms previously, I had never met Chris and didn't even know he existed.


It was July and I was knee deep in the middle of a buying season. I had left my husband some  five months earlier and was still reeling from the pain and shock and overwhelming sense of failure that our separation had brought so violently to the fore. Truth be told I was also still recovering from a broken heart - a doomed love which had given me the impetus to leave forever.


So not really paying much attention to my imminent appointment, I sat down to wait on a black leather sofa which now resides in our marital home. When Chris walked into Reception and I stood up to shake his hand, the weirdest thing happened. Remember I told you about my mum speaking to me? Well this is the precursor to that.


As I stood and reached out my hand to greet this stranger. As I looked him square in the eyes, as I had been taught, as I placed my small hand into his strong, large one, I heard a voice.


And the voice that I heard was my own. Too strange for words. As I gazed into my future husband's eyes and felt his warm, safe hand envelope mine, I heard my own voice say distinctly: "I want to spend the rest of my life with this man".


Can you imagine? Has it happened to you? I didn't know what had hit me. It was such a strange thing to say to myself. I spent the entire appointment tongue tied and clumsy and I left their showroom on a different planet.


It was many years before my initial thought became even remotely possible and our love was not consummated for many years, but I never forgot that moment and it sustained me through many a painful experience.


Many years later and happily married, I realised what it was that I had felt that summer's evening so many years before. I felt as though I recognised him. I recognised my future husband. I looked into his eyes and I relaxed, knowing that I'd found my soul mate.


I know it all sounds very romantic - and it was to me. The reality of our situation was rather more mundane and complicated. Isn't it always? But the knowledge that I was given that day and the solid love that has grown out of not only our years together, but our shared experiences, has proven to be the perfect recipe for our marriage.


Oh God, I sound like a Mills and Boon novel! Yes, well, that's how I feel. So now I can tell you why I think I am a good wife.


I am a good wife by instinct. Everything that I didn't do in my first marriage I try to do in this one. It is no effort, that is it's strength. I know that our aim is to love unconditionally and let go of Maya - illusion. And I have struggled for many years to overcome my demons and live in that way. This is different. Different in that being a good wife to my beautiful husband Chris is no effort, no chore. I love him unconditionally just like in the movies. I want to please him because his happiness is one of my main goals.


Now I subscribe to Deepak Chopra's view that we all have our Dharma - our one unique talent, skill that is individual to each of us. The belief (Hindu I think) is that we each have one special gift, something that we have a passion for and therefore we are good at. The combination of happiness and purpose is a powerful one - the most powerful.


Well, I reckon that I am Chris's Dharma. It seems to be true. His purpose in life, the thing that he is better than anyone else at, is me. Wow. How lucky am I?


Shall I tell you what he said to me quite early on in our relationship? I was bemoaning some situation, at work probably, and he made a pertinent observation about it and my feelings. I was so taken aback by someone noticing that I asked him how he came to know this about me. His reply to this day is still the loveliest thing that anyone has ever said to me. He said:


"I pay attention to you." 


How beautiful is that? What more do any of us really want but to be noticed, to be heard. I once told that story to a group of my girlfriends. The collective aah that rang round the table was deafening.


So Chris, who is 20 years my senior and all the better for it, continues to inspire me to feats of selflessness that I had only dreamed possible. Of course they're not selfless at all, I just choose to consider them that way. If Chris is happy then I'm happy - whatever that involves.


And I've found that in practising selflessness I am become less selfish. Despite my false altruism I am changed by loving Chris unconditionally. It has made me a better person and a better wife.


Perhaps that is a more appropriate title for this piece. "The Better Wife". Yes, I like that. That sounds much more interesting and flexible than 'good'. More room for manoeuvre in that. Because although I claim such things for myself, I only do so within the context of our relationship. Many of the things that I think make me a better wife would be heinous crimes in some eyes. Isn't that always the case? And I don't care. It's none of my business what other people think of me.


I'll just carry on striving to be a better wife and therefore a better mother, daughter, friend. Because it feels like the right thing to do.


Thank you husbands.
x