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  

God's Footballer

God's footballer hears the voices of angels
Above the choir at Molineux
God's footballer stands on the doorstep
And brings the Good News of the Kingdom to come
While the crowd sings 'Rock of Ages'
The goals bring weekly wages
Yet the glory of the sports pages
Is but the worship of false idols and tempts him not

God's footballer turns on a sixpence
And brings the Great crowd to their feet in praise of him
God's footballer quotes from the Gospels
While knocking on doors in Black Country back streets
He scores goals on a Saturday
And saves souls on a Sunday
For the Lord says these are the Last Days
Prepare thyself for the Judgement yet to come

His career will be over soon
And the rituals of a Saturday afternoon
Bid him a reluctant farewell
For he knows beyond the sport lies the spiritual


God's Footballer by Billy Bragg


I love Billy Bragg. I love his songs. He writes some of the best lyrics I've ever heard. How about "Sexuality"? Brilliant. Not love, not passion, just good clean (or dirty) sex - however you like it amongst consenting adults.
I saw Billy Bragg at The Barrowlands in Glasgow in the Eighties. My boyfriend Scott took me and I threw a tantrum because he'd got us a prime position in front of the stage and I was feeling claustrophobic - spoilt brat. 
Billy was amazing. He is everything that is good and true in a man. He is an honest working class poet. He has a strong moral code and stands up for what he believes in - a man of courage. A man with "core values" as my husband would say. Mm.


Anyway, I digress - for God is indeed a footballer and plays through the feet of these young sportsmen just as sure as Christ was his son. Which leads me on to the subject of today's Blog.


Today Chris and I watched the Crawley Town v Manchester United FA Cup match on telly. We were having a well earned day off, the first of three in a row, and I was feeling at peace with the world having had a productively lazy day - my favourite kind!


So I was in good spirits when I curled up to watch the match featuring as it did our local West Sussex boys. We had discussed it the night before, Chris and I, and we figured that Man U would go easy on them in the first half, out of respect. And then they'd throw everything at them and end up winning four nil or something. And we were right. But also surprisingly and most thrillingly wrong. 


It was a delightfully David and Goliath scenario with Crawley fighting hard and winning possession against the mighty Man U. And they won! Okay the score was 1-0 to Goliath but Crawley outplayed and outran them by a mile. It was a joy to watch. Nothing deterred them. They were fearless and brilliant in their attack and their defence. The Dutch goalie Kuipers was sheer genius and a pleasure to watch - England team take note. The Man of the Match was awarded to Pablo Gill the Crawley Town Captain. He was fantastic - always on the ball and playing for the team. Torres was on brilliant form too - he didn't miss an opportunity once and his one yellow card is just testament to how tenacious he was.


Manchester United had some good players too but they lacked lustre, as if they didn't have the heart to fight their opponent. I have respect for that. But even when they threw Rooney at them, they still had no oomph.


I've been a football fan since I was young and used to watch it on a Sunday afternoon with my dad. Snooker, Golf, Formula One and Football. My dad would fall asleep and I would remain beside him, watching attentively so that i could update him when he awoke.


And what about the footballers themselves? I know often they behave like spoilt kids, paid too much money and treated like kings, but who wouldn't if transported into such an unreal world at such an early age. I love footballers as much as the beautiful game itself. Thierry Henry? Yes please. David James - a Renaissance Man no less. Zinedine Zidane - I loved it when he lamped his opponent in The World Cup for insulting his mother! Football is a great game - entertaining in so many ways (especially for a woman) representative of life itself.


Here's to Crawley Town! Here's to David, the underdog!
x