'Third Time Lucky'
The Triumvirate
I have always recognised ‘The Power of Three’ ever since my early childhood. My baptism into the Catholic Church naturally introduced me to the concept and religious tenet, ‘The Blessed Trinity’ before I’d even started First School. Once I found that I could get my head around that religious conundrum, all things that came in threes became instantly powerful and highly believable.
During my school days, I became fascinated by military strategy and soon discovered how Oliver Cromwell built up the best fighting army in the kingdom and won many a famous battle by use of the triangular formation that his soldiers would group into whenever they came under attack. One of my teachers with an interest in archaeology told me that, because the Egyptian pharaohs wanted their tombs never to be violated by the outside world, they constructed a pyramid shape, based upon the strength of its three dimensional force to withstand any form of attack. It is thought by some scholars that it was this concept that Oliver Cromwell had essentially copied when developing his military strategies.
As a young child at first school, my favourite story was 'The Three Little Pigs' along with 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears.' As I grew older and started going to the cinema, my first films seen were of the silent variety such as, ‘The Three Stooges’. As a lover of all musical, espionage and swashbuckling films during the 50s, other favourites naturally included ‘Three Coins in a Fountain', ‘The Third Man’ and ‘The Three Musketeers’. Around my late teens and early 20s, my love of books, allied to my ever increasing testosterone levels, led me to enjoy stories that contained a love triangle or incidents of Ménage à trios.
Wherever I went or whatever I did, ‘the power of the three’ was ever present and was forever cropping up in my life; whether it was managing to get ‘three in a bed’, in the pub darts match or managing to win that elusive ‘treble bet’ on the horses at the bookies. Even my very Irishness and roots in County Waterford helped to reinforce its potency in my life thereafter. Today, I recognise the origin of one of my own countrymen, not from first hearing their accent, but in hearing how they pronounce the word ‘three’. The Irish are ardent environmentalists when it comes to recognising ‘the power of three’ or as the Irish prefer to pronounce it, 'tree'.
Wife One, Two and Three
They do say that mishaps always come in groups of threes. I do hope that this doesn’t apply to where getting married for the third time is concerned. On the 10th November, 2012 (my 70th birthday to be precise), I shall be marrying Sheila, the love of my life. Although fourteen years younger than me, I have no more feeling of any age-gap existence between us than I do of her being better looking, cleverer and much gentler than I am. Indeed, I’d go so far as to say that ‘we are a perfect match, blend and contrast’ in all matters of importance, which usually bodes well where soul mates are concerned.
What can I say about wife number one, two and soon-to-be three, whilst still maintaining some semblance of factual honesty and impartiality? I can say that they are each younger than me by five, ten and fourteen years respectively. I can say that each is an intelligent and assertive woman. I can also say that they were all very attractive-looking women at my point of meeting and marrying them. I can now say with one hundred per cent certainty that I have at last found the lady of my dreams.
Wife number one was an excellent cook, a fair mother and a poor wife. Wife number two was a plain cook, a good mother and a good wife. While wife-to-be number three has never had children and is now past child-rearing age, her abilities as both cook and potential wife are excellent in all respects! Her skills in the kitchen with the cooking of her jams, cakes and bread have proved as mouth watering as her skills in all other departments in the area of 'keeping her man a happy bunny'. My only downside since I've been riding high on the beautiful taste of my lady's cooking I must add, is that I have been on the wrong side of sixteen stones for the past five years, and every day I spend eating high on the hog essentially guarantees that I shall never be in the running for jockey of the year.
It does strike me as being somewhat strange to behold, but the image of the wife ‘married to’ and the one ‘divorced from’ seem markedly different to the ‘husband past’ and ‘husband present’. It’s amazing how any woman who could once get their man’s pulse racing in romantic anticipation many years ago, upon divorce loses all of their attractiveness and charm; essentially making her seem no more appealing today than a Billingsgate fishwife in laddered stockings and oily hair.
Having outlined the factual similarities of the three ladies in my life, allow me to address their effect upon it and how my impressions of man-woman relationships have been influenced; along with the particular foibles of the ‘fairer sex’ in general and their role within marriage in particular.
It is an accepted point of view in most male quarters where their speech is not subject to mass censorship, amendment or disapproval by a wifely presence, that the day they got married, they really had no idea as to what lay in store. Most of them indicated that the day they spoke their marriage vows, they had no idea as to the cost of breaking them or indeed, the price of keeping them.
It is an accepted point of view in most male quarters where their speech is not subject to mass censorship, amendment or disapproval by a wifely presence, that the day they got married, they really had no idea as to what lay in store. Most of them indicated that the day they spoke their marriage vows, they had no idea as to the cost of breaking them or indeed, the price of keeping them.
Wife Number One
Let me say from the outset that whilst I understand that there are mother-in laws and ‘mother-in-laws’, whereas some undoubtedly come from hell, there are a few that are heaven-sent! I have been told many times that if a husband wishes to see how his wife will look when she is in her late 50s, all he needs to do is to look at her mother when he marries her daughter. While this is no doubt often the case, the pattern doesn't always follow to form and has been allowed to mutate from time to time.
My first mother-in law was one of the heaven-sent varieties and to tell the truth, had it not been for her, my first marriage may not have lasted thirteen weeks before its inevitable collapse as opposed to the thirteen years it endured before being reduced to rubble. While I never once deliberately indicated how poor the relationship between me and her daughter had got, I'm sure that she sensed that separation between us was as inevitable as her early death from cancer of the lungs, once it had been diagnosed in its advanced stages.
To her eternal credit, her last words to me the day before she died were not ones designed to try and patch up my failed marriage to her eldest daughter, but words of the deepest respect that any man could ever hope to hear from his mother-in-law. "Do something for me Billy. Never change from the type of man you are." As far as utterances from the mouth of a mother-in-law go, they don't come any better or sweeter than those last fourteen words my mother-in-law Dorothy spoke to me.
To her eternal credit, her last words to me the day before she died were not ones designed to try and patch up my failed marriage to her eldest daughter, but words of the deepest respect that any man could ever hope to hear from his mother-in-law. "Do something for me Billy. Never change from the type of man you are." As far as utterances from the mouth of a mother-in-law go, they don't come any better or sweeter than those last fourteen words my mother-in-law Dorothy spoke to me.
No one comes into any new relationship without history and for many a marriage partner, they bring a great deal of their own emotional baggage that they have locked away in their ‘bottom drawer’ and which is often brought to your attention, only after the wedding night.
Very occasionally, one may have thought that they were marrying a very ordinary woman, who turns out to be the most extraordinary of wives. It is however, more than likely for the groom to have thought himself marrying a very sensible and down-to earth woman, only to discover before the honeymoon has concluded that his beautiful bride is no more than a lost, confused, perplexed, disorientated, bewildered woman; unclear as to why she ever elected to tie herself up to any man and unsure as to whether any man on the face of this earth is worthy of placing her trust in.
Very occasionally, one may have thought that they were marrying a very ordinary woman, who turns out to be the most extraordinary of wives. It is however, more than likely for the groom to have thought himself marrying a very sensible and down-to earth woman, only to discover before the honeymoon has concluded that his beautiful bride is no more than a lost, confused, perplexed, disorientated, bewildered woman; unclear as to why she ever elected to tie herself up to any man and unsure as to whether any man on the face of this earth is worthy of placing her trust in.
Within weeks of getting married, wife number one essentially reneged on every promise and understanding she had given me prior to our marriage about the manner in which we would seek to live our lives thereafter. It was this breach of trust that would eventually prove to be the ‘deal breaker’ and would eventually become the straw that broke the camel's back.
My first mother-in-law once told me during my first five years of marriage that being a husband can be hard. I must say that remaining married to her daughter was damn near impossible and was more akin to me having to 'run the gauntlet' of my new bride's unresolved emotions for the whole of the next thirteen years! As a probation officer who dealt with many battered wives and battered husband situations over my career, I can say from my own personal experience, that given a choice between all manner of marital abuse, I honestly believe it harder to have to cope with a constant 'emotional battering' from one's spouse then almost any other manner of abuse they might seek to inflict! Bruised flesh and broken bones heal much quicker than the consequences of emotional blackmail and broken marriage vows!
Like every union that has ever occurred between a man and woman who think that they are in love, marriage is meant to be ‘forever', but alas is rarely so. As I have aged, I have grown to believe that every relationship between the sexes is promoted out of some unconscious reasoning and predestined prophecy. We each get something ‘we want or need’ from the relationship at the time of first experiencing it. Correspondingly, many get more of what ‘they don’t need or want’ towards its inevitable end.
To many an unfortunate man and woman, marriage can become a ticking time bomb as its doomsday scenario approaches. If one sees the bomb ready to go off, it's probably time to cut loose and get out. Like the local publican eager to get to their bed at the end of a hard day, I now realise the relief to be had by ‘calling time’ when the final whistle has been blown and the match which was initially made in heaven, has ended in hell.
To many an unfortunate man and woman, marriage can become a ticking time bomb as its doomsday scenario approaches. If one sees the bomb ready to go off, it's probably time to cut loose and get out. Like the local publican eager to get to their bed at the end of a hard day, I now realise the relief to be had by ‘calling time’ when the final whistle has been blown and the match which was initially made in heaven, has ended in hell.
Don’t get me wrong, I have and always will believe that anyone who says these sacred words ‘until death us do part’ on their wedding day, truly means to stay married for life when the words are spoken in all earnestness. I did! I also believe in the words ‘for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health’ and can hand-on-heart say that however much of the ‘worse, poverty and ill-health’ came my way, I never sought to end a marriage and was prepared to try and make it work out (even though I now accept that the decision of my wife to end the union was the right one for her to make).
I have since come to believe that every relationship has its own time span and that somewhere along the line, a natural ending of the love-bond appears. When it becomes too hard to depend upon an appropriate response from your marriage partner any longer, the time has arrived to seriously consider your options of how to leave with the least damage to all concerned. Like a couple of mountain climbers, in the beginning, you are more prepared to scale the heights side-by-side, but as the relationship declines, so does the willingness to 'look out' on the other's behalf. Once the signs of breakdown emerge, this is soon followed by the severance of the umbilical cord of understanding, sensitivity and communication that once existed between the couple in earlier years. Whereas you both may once have held on to the prospect of 'better times ahead' and looked out for each other's back, you now become weary of pulling them out of one sticky situation after another. In emotional desperation, you no longer possess either strength or inclination to hold onto the rope and you each find yourselves stopping holding hands and reluctantly letting go!
In most marriages, the relationship between the couple quickly changes not long after the return from their honeymoon and, I am led to understand from a few poor unfortunates, even during it! One chap who quickly realised that he’d been wrong to marry told me, ‘The only thing they proved to have in common was the date of their wedding and their blood type'. He told me that he hadn't been married for two weeks before he felt trapped in a bouquet of barbed-wire comments that were designed to bind him closer to his vows as well as cut to ribbons any protest he dared make or argument he dared to brook.
Have you ever wondered how the practice of needing a honeymoon ever got started? In my more frivolous moments I have given the matter some thought and I now think that I have worked it out.
I strongly suspect that a honeymoon is used by the new bride to ‘suss out’ the man she has hitched her wagon to. It is during this first couple of weeks of marriage that the woman is setting out her stall for the next fifty years of how things ‘shall be’ or ‘shall not be’ (whichever applies), and apportioning the roles of man and wife, according to her mother’s manual book of instructions on, ‘How to keep your man in his proper place’.
I strongly suspect that a honeymoon is used by the new bride to ‘suss out’ the man she has hitched her wagon to. It is during this first couple of weeks of marriage that the woman is setting out her stall for the next fifty years of how things ‘shall be’ or ‘shall not be’ (whichever applies), and apportioning the roles of man and wife, according to her mother’s manual book of instructions on, ‘How to keep your man in his proper place’.
Isn’t it strange, but when a wife starts to tire at the mere presence of her husband, her favourite instructions are always prefixed by ‘Get out of my hair.....kitchen.....bedroom....life, will you!’ You will doubtlessly note that in your marital demise, the very same places that she once avidly invited you into have now become places of instant exile for you.
One of the things that I have now come to believe is that women possess a gene of ‘secrecy’ in their make-up department. However good a relationship they have with their partners, they will always sneak some expensive clothing item into their wardrobe while their poor husband is still at the office working overtime to pay the bills and credit cards. When the article is first displayed and worn in public by your good lady, it may be described as something she has 'had for ages' and had simply forgotten was there.
Wives are also notoriously bad for keeping receipts of their frequent shopping excursions. No receipt kept means no account of the item transaction can ever be made in their husband’s memory log or checked against his bank balance. A poor husband never really knows whether his bank account has been hacked into, or whether ‘identity theft’ has taken place. The likely answer in nine out of ten cases usually proves to be down to the wife having yet again, drawn some money out of the cash machine or purchased some item and thrown away the evidence of her purchase; the receipt! Accounting under such handicap would drive Uriah Heep to utter distraction as he tried to make the figures tally!
During my first five years of marriage to wife one, despite us each earning a good wage and with no debt, staying clear of debt was extremely hard. We had only a small mortgage and no children to support for the first seven years, but because of my wife's 'expensive tastes', and in particular her liking for fine clothes and the best there was to buy, juggling the monthly finances in order to avoid the bailiffs calling round, required the economic skills of a Keynesian scholar.
Just as Keynesian doctrine is an economic theory stating that active government intervention in the marketplace and monetary policy is the best method of ensuring economic growth and stability, so my active intervention via a letter with our local bank manager was a regular monthly occurrence whenever the statements arrived on the doorstep. Although, we had never yet had occasion to meet face-to-face, I could imagine his banker's hat sitting on his desk as he counted his coins while I wrote him my monthly letter of apology yet again, telling him why we were overdrawn once more!
Just as Keynesian doctrine is an economic theory stating that active government intervention in the marketplace and monetary policy is the best method of ensuring economic growth and stability, so my active intervention via a letter with our local bank manager was a regular monthly occurrence whenever the statements arrived on the doorstep. Although, we had never yet had occasion to meet face-to-face, I could imagine his banker's hat sitting on his desk as he counted his coins while I wrote him my monthly letter of apology yet again, telling him why we were overdrawn once more!
During the 60s, the relationship between bank and customer existed via 'the letter' informing one whenever their account happened to go a 'few pounds' into the red or by a 'face to face' meeting to arrange mortgages and bank loans. These were the days when the bank manager was a figure of community importance. Even the mere sight of his hat was instantly recognisable and denoted the proud profession he was a part of. An unauthorised overdraft of a mere £5 would warrant a warning letter and anything above £20 would be sufficient to risk being struck off the bank's customer base and being instantly arrested and carted off to the debtors prison after your cheque had bounced for the third time and all of your household goods and property had been impounded by the bailiffs.
Being a keen student of British History, I was well acquainted with the role of the Marshalsea Prison in London between 1329-1842 where all of the worse undesirables were incarcerated, such as those committing crimes at sea, unnatural crimes, sedition and debtors. Even seven hundred years ago, debtors earned not only a bad name, but they could also expect to receive a bad end!
Being a keen student of British History, I was well acquainted with the role of the Marshalsea Prison in London between 1329-1842 where all of the worse undesirables were incarcerated, such as those committing crimes at sea, unnatural crimes, sedition and debtors. Even seven hundred years ago, debtors earned not only a bad name, but they could also expect to receive a bad end!
I will never forget having come out of the other side of the Christmas festivities of 1972, over £200 in the red. I nearly fainted when I did the monthly accounts. The reason, as per usual, was down to the extravagant spending practices of my wife number one, who only ever told me about whatever purchase she'd acquired after the warning letter from the bank had arrived with the 'tip off'. I could remember mentally calculating that if all the fifty five million population in Great Britain then owed £200, the entire vaults of gold bullion beneath the Bank of England would be depleted and the country would have been declared bankrupt overnight; an ever increasing risk that my household was falling into!
I decided there and then to forget about 'saving face' to my bank manager and not provide him with the usual lame excuse that I'd now provided for almost four years since my return from honeymoon. This time I decided to approach the bank manager as 'a man and husband who was married to a spendthrift wife who never kept receipts of her purchases'. The letter I wrote, honestly explaining all, essentially said that even the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Anthony Barber, with all his economic nous would be able to keep the nation's accounts in order if, behind his back and wholly unknown to him, a spendthrift Cabinet Minister kept dipping into the treasury vaults and taking an odd few million here and there whenever they fancied, without leaving behind an IOU note explaining the absence.
The bank manager wrote back, thanking me for my honest message. He sympathised with my situation and said that since my wife and I were both professionals with hardly any outstanding mortgage and no child dependents, he was instantly granting my account a £500 overdraft facility. The year was 1973 and at a time when the average annual wage was around £2,500, a £500 overdraft facility was simply unheard of then. That overdraft has never been removed and has been regularly increased since without me needing to request it. So the overdraft facility remains and while I rarely dip into it, it is nice to know that I no longer receive nasty bank letters, despite the country being in the midst of the greatest economic recession that the world has ever known.
The bank manager wrote back, thanking me for my honest message. He sympathised with my situation and said that since my wife and I were both professionals with hardly any outstanding mortgage and no child dependents, he was instantly granting my account a £500 overdraft facility. The year was 1973 and at a time when the average annual wage was around £2,500, a £500 overdraft facility was simply unheard of then. That overdraft has never been removed and has been regularly increased since without me needing to request it. So the overdraft facility remains and while I rarely dip into it, it is nice to know that I no longer receive nasty bank letters, despite the country being in the midst of the greatest economic recession that the world has ever known.
In fact, the only thing that a wife is prone to take into account is ‘size’. I do not refer to that of her husband’s manhood (except when out for a night with the girls at some Chippendale Party), but rather to the size of her wardrobe, his salary and her housekeeping allowance or personal spending allocation. As the man grows older, she will also take into account the size of his ever-expanding stomach.
And not to forget those ‘unmentionables’ that I now deign to mention. Her ears will never escape the mounting decibels of his farts that assault her in bed when he thinks her to be asleep, or whilst she lays awake in the dark hours of night listening to his dreams, in the hope that he may speak out loud his most secret of thoughts and betray himself in some manner that will keep her anger justifiably fuelled for the next five years! The man may be dreaming, having a nightmare or venturing into the land of total fantasy, but whatever he utters will be capable of turning his once beautiful wife into a screaming witch who is determined to do him damage once he wakes up, besides holding him to account for his nightly unmentionables.
And not to forget those ‘unmentionables’ that I now deign to mention. Her ears will never escape the mounting decibels of his farts that assault her in bed when he thinks her to be asleep, or whilst she lays awake in the dark hours of night listening to his dreams, in the hope that he may speak out loud his most secret of thoughts and betray himself in some manner that will keep her anger justifiably fuelled for the next five years! The man may be dreaming, having a nightmare or venturing into the land of total fantasy, but whatever he utters will be capable of turning his once beautiful wife into a screaming witch who is determined to do him damage once he wakes up, besides holding him to account for his nightly unmentionables.
Arguments between a man and his wife are among the least equal of ‘cross-word’ games ever played within a marriage. Whoever imagined that women could ever understand the game of cricket by playing arguments with a straight bat has never quite grasped the inherent inequality that has always existed between husband and wife or man and woman?
Between the onset of the Suffragette Movement and the turn of the New Millennium, women have persuaded society into thinking that it is a part of life’s drudgery and discrimination to be a wife and mother who is confined to the home and the kitchen sink. Constant references are made by them as to how their mothers had to struggle to rear them; particularly during the absence of fathers during the war years.These experiences of gross unfairness between the two sexes essentially resulted in wifely declarations that never again did they ever intend 'to go there' in their future lives.
Between the onset of the Suffragette Movement and the turn of the New Millennium, women have persuaded society into thinking that it is a part of life’s drudgery and discrimination to be a wife and mother who is confined to the home and the kitchen sink. Constant references are made by them as to how their mothers had to struggle to rear them; particularly during the absence of fathers during the war years.These experiences of gross unfairness between the two sexes essentially resulted in wifely declarations that never again did they ever intend 'to go there' in their future lives.
How shallow such arguments have shown themselves to be though in current times. Today, the modern wife and mother cannot afford to be a work at home mum. Apart from the wealthy and aristocratic women in society, the declining economic climate has necessitated the wife and mother in a marriage to work outside the family home in order to pay its ever-increasing mortgage repayments and help to keep a roof overhead; along with the bills to fuel the family home and feed the children!
Often, her demands at work means that she misses out on so much of her children's lives and while cooking their evening meal has become a thing of times long ago, it is often past their bedtime when she arrives home from her profession.The liberation of the mother from the home has indeed been too questionable a price for Great Britain and its families to pay for gender progress.
Often, her demands at work means that she misses out on so much of her children's lives and while cooking their evening meal has become a thing of times long ago, it is often past their bedtime when she arrives home from her profession.The liberation of the mother from the home has indeed been too questionable a price for Great Britain and its families to pay for gender progress.
Indeed, it is a mark of the present times, that only the wealthy, the ignorant, the fecund and the couldn’t–care-less of society are able to practice the privileged role of 'motherhood'. This was once a situation that was deemed to be the right of every woman of child-breeding years within a marriage, whatever their social status or potential for family income!
The argument has never been equally balanced. Since time immemorial, man has exercised dominance over woman, first as cavemen and later as developing human species who simply treated women as second rate citizens in whatever type of society or institution they governed. For too long, the pendulum swung in man’s favour and clearly advantaged the male in the contract of marriage; rendering the only available roles for a women being those of mistress, wife, mother or spinster! And in the event that the woman didn't easily slot into any of these male-designated categories, then it didn't prove too difficult to get the woman branded a witch and burnt at the stake!
Man was also favoured over woman in all other manner within all aspects of society. At the start of the 1900s, the Suffragettes pointed the way forward for women's resistance to man's discrimination. Working outside the home during the war years also led to a change of their role and, after the 1970s and the advent of the birth control pill, 'The Women's Rights Movement' and the publication of 'The Female Eunuch' by Germaine Greer, there was no stopping the change as the pendulum started to swing in the opposite direction, favouring all women over men. The miner's strike of the mid 80s led by Arthur Scargill was duly quashed by the steel of a new Prime Minister, the first woman Prime Minister of Great Britain, Margaret Thatcher, who castrated trade union rights across every sector of society.
At last, a woman led the country to victory in war with the miners on the domestic front and the Argentinians in The Falklands' War over the Malvinas in 1982. During the past thirty years we have witnessed the pendulum clearly swing farther in the opposite direction than it has ever swung; indeed so far as to 'stop the clock' of a cohesive family unit. Today, man appears fully emaciated from the specimen of 'hunter, gatherer' that he once was, having been firmly put in his proper place in atonement for millions of years of lording it over the women. As the Spice Girls advocated, 'girl power' seems here to stay for the next Millennium.
Man was also favoured over woman in all other manner within all aspects of society. At the start of the 1900s, the Suffragettes pointed the way forward for women's resistance to man's discrimination. Working outside the home during the war years also led to a change of their role and, after the 1970s and the advent of the birth control pill, 'The Women's Rights Movement' and the publication of 'The Female Eunuch' by Germaine Greer, there was no stopping the change as the pendulum started to swing in the opposite direction, favouring all women over men. The miner's strike of the mid 80s led by Arthur Scargill was duly quashed by the steel of a new Prime Minister, the first woman Prime Minister of Great Britain, Margaret Thatcher, who castrated trade union rights across every sector of society.
At last, a woman led the country to victory in war with the miners on the domestic front and the Argentinians in The Falklands' War over the Malvinas in 1982. During the past thirty years we have witnessed the pendulum clearly swing farther in the opposite direction than it has ever swung; indeed so far as to 'stop the clock' of a cohesive family unit. Today, man appears fully emaciated from the specimen of 'hunter, gatherer' that he once was, having been firmly put in his proper place in atonement for millions of years of lording it over the women. As the Spice Girls advocated, 'girl power' seems here to stay for the next Millennium.
The best place to observe such role change is in the realm of man and wife arguments, disputes and points of disagreements. Today, arguments are never meant to be on an equal footing between husband and wife. Indeed, any man who ever thought that they were, foolishly started off his marriage on the wrong footing and is 'treading hot coals and walking stony ground.’ Appealing for reason from the woman is akin to asking her to pull you out of the quicksand, having been the very person to have initially pushed you into it!
Over many years, the experience of always playing second fiddle in an orchestra of two people should prepare the husband to accept the inevitability of his loss in any ‘battle of cross words’ that ever takes place between man and woman. The first lesson the husband will learn is that while the man may occasionally have the first word, it is the woman who will always have the last! He will soon come to learn that it is the woman who ascribes herself the multiple roles of bowler, bats-woman and umpire in the cricket match of marriage. It will become as clear as Waterford Crystal that it is the wife in every marriage who draws up the boundaries of conduct and sets the rules within all manner of situations between the two of them.
He will learn that marital conduct decrees that in any argument between husband and wife, the man must never interrupt the woman when she is saying something important, but must always give way to her interruptions whenever he is speaking nonsense. An additional consideration of this rule of conduct incorporates the fact that anything and everything that one’s wife says is always ‘important’ while the feeble utterances of all husbands are nothing short of sheer ‘nonsense’. He will inevitably allow her the 'last word' to keep the peace and she will invariably take it to provoke an argument! It is only after a man has been married for at least a dozen years that he will grow to understand that although his wife will always have the last word in any marital argument they ever have, anything that he may dare to say after ‘her last word on the matter’ will be nothing more than ‘the start of a new and bigger argument’!
My first marriage quickly came to fiery end the day that our kitchen went up in flames. The fire happened within hours of my mother-in law having died. One month prior to her death by cancer, I had insisted that she came out of the hospital to die in our house, where I spent the final three weeks of her life nursing her, having taken time off my work. At the time of the house fire, I was upstairs for over half an hour on the telephone, informing members of her family of the sad event. While I was speaking on the phone, I casually looked out of the bedroom window at the commotion that seemed to be going on outside. That was when I saw two fire engines and started to wonder where the fire was and what precisely they were doing parked outside my front door?
Meanwhile, I had foolishly left some sausages slowly sizzling in the upper grill section of the oven, which I forgot about. During my time upstairs, my wife and two young children were downstairs and the kitchen fire quickly took hold and threatened to burn down our house.
My wife and children escaped as soon as she saw the fire take hold and took refuge in the home of a neighbour, from where they called the fire brigade. About ten minutes later, I emerged down a staircase of black, toxic smoke fumes to find six firemen dousing the flames of the blazing kitchen. Having been wholly unaware of my presence in the burning house, the firemen looked quite surprised to see me come down the smoke filled stairs. My wife had omitted to inform them or anyone for that matter that I was upstairs throughout the incident and was wholly oblivious to any risk to my life.
My wife and children escaped as soon as she saw the fire take hold and took refuge in the home of a neighbour, from where they called the fire brigade. About ten minutes later, I emerged down a staircase of black, toxic smoke fumes to find six firemen dousing the flames of the blazing kitchen. Having been wholly unaware of my presence in the burning house, the firemen looked quite surprised to see me come down the smoke filled stairs. My wife had omitted to inform them or anyone for that matter that I was upstairs throughout the incident and was wholly oblivious to any risk to my life.
It was only later after I’d discovered the full facts that I finally accepted that something was drastically wrong in our marriage. I learned that after my wife had seen the fire ablaze, she took our two children to the home of a neighbour and drank a cup of tea to calm herself down from the shock, along with eating a plate of cucumber sandwiches that were kindly offered. Then she told the neighbour what had happened; ‘and only then’ phoned the fire brigade after having been prompted by the concerned neighbour to do so; all in that order! Needless to say, the very fact that she had forgotten to tell anyone that I was upstairs at the time of the fire, strongly suggested that the end of our relationship had arrived and that if I wanted to have any chance of living into old age, the time had come for me to ‘get out of the matrimonial abode and out of her life’ as soon as possible.
Despite being a ‘Probation Officer and a Gentleman’ at the time, I was clearly out of my mind when I thought for the briefest of moments that the Domestic Courts of the land were governed by any sense of fairness in the judiciary system where the breakdown in a marriage and the custody of children was concerned. Despite having exclusively provided the total care of our two children for the first four and five years of their lives (with the exception of their maternal grandmother who babysat when my wife and I were at work during the day), I only received minimal access to them of four hours per week for the next eleven years of their lives and was only once allowed to take them on holiday for one week during this entire decade. In many ways, Dustin Hoffman's character in the film 'Kramer vs Kramer', which had won an Oscar a few years earlier, got a much better deal than I ever got out of the courts and my ex-wife.
Because my wife had never expressed an interest in caring for our two children since their birth, I arrived at an agreement with her whereby she would take all the assets and I would have custody of the children and allow her unfettered access. As we each earned the same monthly wage (her being a teacher), all maintenance claims against me would be forgone. Despite having transferred the sole ownership of our three-bedroom detached matrimonial abode to my wife (a £60,000 house with less than £500 outstanding mortgage in 1981), I was soon to learn how foolish such generosity by me had been.
I was heavily stung for maintenance payments for the next fourteen years, despite the fact that she earned more than I did and had only one third of my monthly expenditure. And, in all the ongoing court battles that were waged for over fourteen years (of which I was the respondent on every single occasion), my wife with more assets, less debt and more weekly income than me got ‘legal aid’ and I did not; leaving me with over £10,000 legal bills to pay for securing opposed access to my two children!
So as far as an equal division of the cake went, the long and short of it was that, it didn't! I was essentially made to feel no more important than a mouse where all assets and parental rights of my marriage were concerned and for the following fourteen years, I simply went about my business not knowing when the cat would pounce again when I was least expecting it.
I was heavily stung for maintenance payments for the next fourteen years, despite the fact that she earned more than I did and had only one third of my monthly expenditure. And, in all the ongoing court battles that were waged for over fourteen years (of which I was the respondent on every single occasion), my wife with more assets, less debt and more weekly income than me got ‘legal aid’ and I did not; leaving me with over £10,000 legal bills to pay for securing opposed access to my two children!
So as far as an equal division of the cake went, the long and short of it was that, it didn't! I was essentially made to feel no more important than a mouse where all assets and parental rights of my marriage were concerned and for the following fourteen years, I simply went about my business not knowing when the cat would pounce again when I was least expecting it.
Many years later, a Senior Probation Officer and good friend of mine who'd had a similar experience to me that led to the breakdown of his marriage, used to unashamedly offer his male matrimonial clients heading for a divorce his own particular piece of worldly wisdom. Working on the 99% likelihood that when in the witness box of a divorce hearing, an aggrieved wife will deceive with as much licentiousness as she can get away with as to the true state of her financial and prevailing domestic situation that she now enjoys with her new partner, my friend would always begin and close his interview with one question:
"Tell me, when you enter the witness box and take the oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, are you prepared to forswear and commit perjury?” my friend would ask.
If the answer came back as being, ‘No’, my friend would then only have one response. He would calmly tell the man, “Then be prepared to give her the house, the children, the car, the savings, the dog and half your earnings for the rest of your miserable life; because if you don’t, the court most certainly will!"
If the answer came back as being, ‘No’, my friend would then only have one response. He would calmly tell the man, “Then be prepared to give her the house, the children, the car, the savings, the dog and half your earnings for the rest of your miserable life; because if you don’t, the court most certainly will!"
I’m sorry to say that my friend sadly reflected the accuracy of the times as both he and I knew it to be, besides highlighting the wide disparity in the justice received by divorcing husbands and fathers, and wives and mothers during those years. I was not surprised to discover that by the turn of the century, ‘Fathers 4 Justice’ had been formed by Matt O’Connor. Matt was a marketing consultant and a father who became a prominent critic and protester of UK Family Law after he’d been barred from seeing his young sons outside of a contact centre, following separation from his wife in 2000.
The following years of ‘Fathers 4 Justice’ witnessed dramatic protest stunts, with aggrieved fathers usually dressed as comic book superheroes and frequently scaling public buildings, bridges and monuments. Stunts also included supporters storming courts dressed in Father Christmas outfits, clapping the Government’s Children’s Minister in handcuffs and the most notably group member, Jason Hatch, climbing onto Buckingham Palace dressed as Batman!
It’s a shame that the group came on the scene almost twenty years later than my initial grievances against the justice system. Had they been around at the time, Probation Officer or not, I’d have most certainly joined them in their protests!
In conclusion, I could truthfully say that, “I did not find my marriage to my first wife to be grand, but I could have found my divorce costs to be around a grand few grand!”
When I reflect upon divorce from my second wife, she was a much fairer and independent person in all respects and a clear division of our joint property was readily agreed to between us. I had not anticipated the breakdown of my second marriage and was told that my wife had considered it ended many years before she informed me of the fact that she wanted to end it! She had essentially grown out of love and for the second marriage in my life, I found myself unceremoniously dumped!
In conclusion, I could truthfully say that, “I did not find my marriage to my first wife to be grand, but I could have found my divorce costs to be around a grand few grand!”
When I reflect upon divorce from my second wife, she was a much fairer and independent person in all respects and a clear division of our joint property was readily agreed to between us. I had not anticipated the breakdown of my second marriage and was told that my wife had considered it ended many years before she informed me of the fact that she wanted to end it! She had essentially grown out of love and for the second marriage in my life, I found myself unceremoniously dumped!
Wife Number Two
Armed with the experiences of my first failed marriage, one might think that I would have steered clear of any commitment to another of the fairer sex for a long-enough time span to get used to my own company. But where women are concerned, a good-looking woman with an attractive figure and fine mind could always manage to get me to temporarily suspend my critical faculties. As common sense issues were invariably pushed into the background, my mind would swiftly move from matters of higher importance and descend way down into the lower regions of my baser instincts.
I had always been a sucker for a damsel in distress; a beautiful vessel of sadness experienced and hope denied. I always fell for someone who had a lot to give, but never allowed you to see more than half on offer at any one time. I was always attracted towards someone who a man would be proud to be seen out with in public; a woman whom your parents and dear old Aunt Alice could approve of when you brought them around for tea unannounced for a Sunday afternoon introductory meeting.
I had always been a sucker for a damsel in distress; a beautiful vessel of sadness experienced and hope denied. I always fell for someone who had a lot to give, but never allowed you to see more than half on offer at any one time. I was always attracted towards someone who a man would be proud to be seen out with in public; a woman whom your parents and dear old Aunt Alice could approve of when you brought them around for tea unannounced for a Sunday afternoon introductory meeting.
Within one week of separating from my first wife of thirteen years marriage, I had met the new love of my life; a single mother with a child of her own who had been separated for over two years. Within two months of our first meeting, we were planning to move in together and eventually get married once the divorce came through. Once again, I was walking on cloud nine.
Commitment is one of those strange things. Without it, a relationship will never prosper and thrive and yet, unless it is forthcoming in equal measure from both parties to the relationship, any marital boat entered will most certainly sink in the first storm of tempestuous waves it has to negotiate. Apart from being equal in measure, the commitment of each partner has to be total. It needs to be no less than one hundred per cent to be effective.
Anything less than one hundred per cent commitment from both bride and groom will quickly see their boat founder and sink all their hopes of a happy marriage as their dreams are washed up on the beach.
Anything less than one hundred per cent commitment from both bride and groom will quickly see their boat founder and sink all their hopes of a happy marriage as their dreams are washed up on the beach.
Commitment is akin to pregnancy. One cannot be a bit pregnant; you either are or you aren’t! Likewise, the difference between ‘partial’ and ‘total’ commitment is as wide as the difference between what both the hen and the pig bring as their contribution to the dining table. Whichever way one looks at the situation, the hen’s egg, although a worthwhile contribution, represents only ‘partial’ commitment, whereas the commitment from the pig is nothing less than ‘total!'
I remained married to my second wife for twenty-eight years and we had two wonderful children. Two years before she told me that she wanted a separation, she undertook a responsible post in Northern Ireland. While I sensed that our marriage relationship had undoubtedly changed since the children had grown and flown the family home, I was still shocked to discover that the end to our relationship had finally arrived.
I will not pretend that I wasn’t sad because I was, and I cried for about one week while I tried to get my head around these new circumstances that uninvitingly came my way in my late 60s. Then, a strange thing happened. Within one week of the separation, I realised that my wife had been right to ‘call time’ on our marital relationship. From that moment of acceptance of the new found situation, I felt ‘free’ to do whatever I fancied doing from here on in. I felt like a bird that had been let out of its cage; a fowl of the air now able to fly where it willed without restraint so long as it remained within the realms of decency and flew not onto another man's home territory.
Over the following two and a half years, I started to meet all manner of women of all shapes, sizes and ages from all walks of life who were in a similar position that I was in. I travelled the country extensively and wouldn’t think twice about driving a round trip of a few hundred miles to meet a lady whom I thought interesting and worthy of meeting up with. No doubt my children started to question my very sanity as the pattern of me never being at home whenever they called slowly developed. They were starting to view their dad as being no better than an old ginger Tom on the prowl. Being nosy about what their old dad was up to, whenever they asked where I'd gone to, I simply replied, 'Gone fishing!' And if they asked, "Did you catch anything?" I'd smile wryly and reply, "I hope not!"
I have always had an honest relationship with my children and indeed with everyone with whom I came into contact ever since my early 20s, when after a particular encounter with a member of the opposite sex, I vowed never again to purposely deceive anyone. To my credit, I can say that I have kept this pledge, although it has not always been easy to tell the truth and can often result in the hurt feelings of the other person. So, whatever I tell my children will always be honest in my expressions and if there is a part of my life that I do not wish to disclose to them, I will merely indicate that I have no intention of telling them and politely request that they 'keep their noses out because I've no intention of unzipping my lips.'
I was pleased to discover that even after twenty eight years of marriage and sharing the birth of another two children, that the separating parents can not only remain civil and polite in their dealings with each other, but also caring, sensitive and considerate towards each other's situation. It was the strangest of feelings to be blissfully happy in a marriage for the first twenty years of it, only then to leave it after twenty eight years; at first sad, but since, increasingly happier than I have ever been. It was also refreshing to find that I did not regret that the marriage had ever taken place. Indeed, the ending of my second marriage and the manner in which the separation that followed was conducted throughout by my ex-wife and me, signified a triumph over adversity and did not waste either of us one penny on fruitless solicitor fees and emotionally draining court appearances.
Whilst all of the aforementioned positive qualities of my second wife undoubtedly helped to effect a smooth separation and divorce process, it also helped our children to come to terms with the break-up of their parents. It was refreshing that on this occasion there were no solicitor vultures in the background and that we had a clean financial break where we simply shared the proceeds of the house that we jointly owned. It was also refreshing to have ended a marriage, happy that it had been so good and mutually loving for over twenty years and not wishing that it had never happened or had been a mistake for either of us. At its end, we were content that we could now move on with our lives in different directions, guided by the positive energy that lives eternal in all good people. My second wife is a good person and I wish her all the happiness possible for the future.
The end of my second marriage effectively told me that it was possible to ‘fall in love’ and to fall ‘out of love’ with the same person. Its end confirmed to me that all relationships have a natural end. For the lucky ones, their marital unions will last for life and only end in the death of either husband or wife. For the less fortunate couple, hopefully they will be able to part remembering the good times that they shared whilst learning from, yet not dwelling, on the bad. For the ones whose marriages end in acrimonious battles that seem to continue throughout the growing years of any marital offspring, I would like to say, “Remember, there are approximately seven billion people in the world. Please don’t allow one person to ruin the rest of your life. Life is too short to waste!”
Wife Number Three
After my second marriage had ended, I determined not to marry again. I was content to travel the country and to meet with a good number of women over the next two years. Essentially, what I discovered during this period was the simple fact that there are a great number of women ‘out there’ who felt that they had been wrongly done to by a man. All that these women seemed to want from a relationship didn’t appear to me to be unreasonable. All they seemed to ask for was a ‘good man’ who was communicative, trustworthy, honest, reliable, sensitive to their needs, someone who could listen as well as lead in conversation; a man who loved his children and who cared more for those less well-off in society than himself. Very few of the women I met and dated seemed to be requiring the six foot Adonis with a six-pack and body physique to match, who was capable of love making for hours non-stop. They’d probably been there, done that and had learned from their mistakes. They now wanted a man who was capable of 'loving them for ever' instead of 'making love to them forever'.
The biggest discovery however, was that I was never without a woman who wanted to be serious with me, despite them having been honestly told at the onset of our contact that I was prepared to date, but without any commitment. I pretty soon began to recognise myself as being a ‘good man’ in a world of many different types of men and, although I have always been a confident and assertive person, feeling this again did undoubtedly provide me with a welcomed confidence boost. After all, whichever way I saw it and sought to dress it up, there was no denying that I’d been twice married and that each wife had eventually decided that they no longer wished to remain married to me. However good a man I was or thought that I was, the simple truth was that I’d been dumped twice by the women I'd married!
Towards the middle of December, 2010, I met up with a woman in Haworth, Keighley and spent a good half hour in Gascoines; one of the village’s quaint tea shops. That meeting left me somewhat confused in my emotional feelings.
Over the following weeks we spoke on the phone a number of times and met up again on a few more occasions. With the passing of each meeting between us, it was as though the visitation of each tide was starting to strip away a veil of uncertainty, leaving me with a much clearer image of the woman that remained facing me.
Over the following weeks we spoke on the phone a number of times and met up again on a few more occasions. With the passing of each meeting between us, it was as though the visitation of each tide was starting to strip away a veil of uncertainty, leaving me with a much clearer image of the woman that remained facing me.
Whilst I sensed that there was something different about this woman, allied to my belief that we had been destined to meet, I hadn't been initially sure that I even liked her. It wasn't that her appearance was unpleasing to the eye as she clearly attracted male attention with ease. She was to me, a beautiful woman in caterpillar dress waiting to crystalise and become reborn in full female splendour. I could clearly see in her hidden beauty of face that she'd experienced much heart ache during recent years since her husband had died. I gained the distinct impression that her body would remain in this metamorphic process until she had left her widowhood behind her, thereby enabling her to emotionally embrace her new soul mate.
Sheila had been born in London during 1956, the Year of the Monkey. She had a Chinese background and had lived for most of her childhood in Singapore. I felt that she was holding her emotions in tight check and would willingly and openly express them as soon as her level of trust in me had been duly satisfied. I could sense her wanting to break out into a wide smile at the first opportunity as she faced the sun of a new dawn.
Sheila had been born in London during 1956, the Year of the Monkey. She had a Chinese background and had lived for most of her childhood in Singapore. I felt that she was holding her emotions in tight check and would willingly and openly express them as soon as her level of trust in me had been duly satisfied. I could sense her wanting to break out into a wide smile at the first opportunity as she faced the sun of a new dawn.
Conversation upon conversation soon led us both to discover those lists of ‘remarkable coincidences’ that seem to convince a man and woman who have fallen in love, that they are merely walking along the path of truth that fate has laid before them. I was also greatly surprised to find that once again and despite any intention to do so, ‘I had fallen in love’ with a beautiful woman with whom I wanted to spend the rest of my life. As they say in Australia, I had found my Sheila. I had been led to her door by the 'Three Wise Monkeys' just as the Magi had been led to the stable in Bethlehem. With two heart attacks behind me, the insertion of a pace maker, plus two knee replacements and one hip replacement in the past ten years, I was surprised when this Yoga instructor in her mid 50s returned the love I felt for her. Indeed, she recognised and proclaimed it before I did and exercised the confidence to express it first.
Sheila is a 55-year-old attractive woman who was widowed in April 2007. She teaches Yoga and is everything that any man could desire in a friend, lover and wife. We have now had almost two years in a relationship, during which time it has become apparent to me that I am happier now than I have ever been in my life. I’m quietly confident that Sheila feels similar. She has made my heart whole once more.
During the time we have been together, I have enjoyed loving another who is as selfless a person as I have ever experienced. We help each other in so many mutual ways and even the parts of our character that compare and contrast are as though one is constantly finding the missing piece of a human jig saw puzzle that fits your life and needs perfectly.
Having spent the years between 1990 and 2005 writing many children’s books, I put up my pen in 2005. However, Sheila has persuaded me to pick up the pen again and to resume my writing; more for pleasure I must add than profit, as I continue all profit from my book sales to go to charitable causes. (Over £200,000 between 1990 and 2005).
We have spent the past year designing my website and Sheila has encouraged me to make all of my previously published books and stories available as E-Books as well as hard/paper copy. By the end of 2012, I should have over fifty of my books available as E-Books on www.smashwords.com and from www.lulu.com and www.amazon.com as paperbacks. All of my new stories will be romantic stories ans will become available for free on my website under the genre and title, 'Tales from Portlaw.'
We have spent the past year designing my website and Sheila has encouraged me to make all of my previously published books and stories available as E-Books as well as hard/paper copy. By the end of 2012, I should have over fifty of my books available as E-Books on www.smashwords.com and from www.lulu.com and www.amazon.com as paperbacks. All of my new stories will be romantic stories ans will become available for free on my website under the genre and title, 'Tales from Portlaw.'
I once read that the secret of a happy and lifelong marriage lay in the mutual loving and the understanding of the two partners. To be happy with your partner, a man and woman should understand them and love them in equal measure or else the lack of one will reduce the effectiveness of the other. It is also important to have shared goals, moments and experiences along with personal space for time to be apart occasionally. Never waste your time allotted to you in this life, for it may evaporate before you have fully used it. Remember that time is both a free and priceless commodity. You cannot own it, but can use it. You cannot keep it, but can spend it. It is like the waterfall that fell your way. Once it has passed you by, it is gone forever!
When I met Sheila on the 15th, December, 2010 in Gascoines, I soon came to know that I had met my lover and soul mate. On the way back home after our first meeting, I heard a record on the car radio that I have always loved and knew there and then that the ‘the power of three’ was giving me another sign of my fate.
I should have remembered that lovers do not meet somewhere as they are in each other all along. ‘Third time lucky’ as we say in Yorkshire. Roll on the 10/11/12 when Sheil and I get married on my 70th birthday.
William Forde: Copyright September, 2012
William Forde: Copyright September, 2012
