Does it amaze you when girls give your husband the eye? Your comfortable pipe-smoking husband who spends his summer evenings up at the allotment and his winters heeled in around the telly. Well, don’t take him too much for granted. You could be in for quite a surprise.
I was amazed, when driving through France not long ago, to find that all kinds of females waved and blew kisses at my husband whenever we happened to stop at traffic lights.
‘They must be mistaking you for a French film actor or a TV personality,’ I said, as a very pretty passing girl, arm-in-arm with her male escort, suddenly disentangled herself, dashed up to our car and gave David an incredibly meaningful wink through the windscreen.
‘Or perhaps it’s a French advertising campaign,’ I added. “You know the sort of thing – if you see Monsieur Fairy Neige in your locality, a wink, a wave and a kiss may bring you a year’s supply of la linen blanc-er than blanc.’
‘Oh very funny,’ said David, waving and grinning in all directions, as we drove off. ‘l expect it is something to do with the French temperament. Or it could even be,’ he added, after a modest pause, ‘that I’m just naturally attractive to the opposite sex.’
When I’d stopped laughing I turned and studied him thoughtfully and, do you know, what with the red tee shirt, the holiday sun-tan and the newly cultivated brigand moustache, he did look wildly attractive.
Which just goes to show that we shouldn’t take each other too much for granted and that there is probably room for improvement even in the happiest of marriages. If, on the other hand, married life turns out to be a lot less than perfect, then it too probably still has a great deal of unexplored potential. (And if you aren’t willing to go exploring, some lonely lady somewhere will be only too glad of the chance.)
I think a day comes in most marriages, and sometimes quite early on, when the wife must say to herself: okay, so Fred’s not perfect. He drinks or he gambles or he smokes too much or he plays darts too often with his mates and he’s got some dirty habits I certainly didn’t know about during the engagement. SO WHAT? If I’d married Steve McQueen I’d probably have a home littered with dismantled motor bikes.
Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward ascribe their long and happy marriage to doing their own thing. He likes to go off to sporting events. She prefers concerts. Mick Jagger and his wife Bianca see themselves always as lovers and never as ‘an old married couple’. Throughout history there have been First Ladies of the Land sitting stoically at home being gracious while their monarchs made merry elsewhere.
So who are we to grumble about Fred’s funny little ways? And come to that, why not try, just for a second, to see married life from his point of view? When was the last time you entered a crowded room and heard the chaps all gasp: ‘Who is that gorgeous, radiant girl?’
Think back for a minute – those were the days when we were forever sprinkling perfume into our bathwater, real phlox blossoms even, and giving ourselves manicures and pedicures and Hey-Presto-Instant-Dazzle face packs.
I once had a flawlessly groomed friend who, before marriage, was forever polishing her jewellery, pressing her clothes and checking her back view in mirrors. Then she got married and now she is just a pair of wrinkled stockings and a soggy skirt dangling beneath a mountainous pile of wet nappies. No wonder her particular Fred is always dropping in at his mother’s. And very lucky for her that he isn’t dropping in elsewhere.
Another girl that I used to know just grunted when her kind, thoughtful and very faithful husband brought her gifts. The first time he came home, in my presence, and flung a tiny enamelled antique fob watch into her lap and she snorted: ‘Huh!’ I thought, oh well, perhaps when I leave she will be less constrained. But no, shortly afterwards she gave me quite a lecture on the importance of ‘keeping one’s husband in his place’ and, a few arid married years after this, her husband’s place became somebody else’s bed.
So if you are sitting at home thinking: ‘I’ll show him, the beast … fancy getting drunk in front of all my friends/draining his sump oil into my mixing bowl/soaking his cylinder head in the baby’s bath …’ then it might be as well to remember that someone – somewhere – will be only too glad to show him that she doesn’t think he’s a beast. She loves sweaty, uncouth men who gamble/drink and/or smoke too much and never change their socks. He can unpick his big old greasy motor bike on her little snow-white carpet any time he likes. And if he had to have plain, proper food like his mother always made, then she’s more than willing to toss her spice-rack out of the window and settle for boiled cabbage. The wily sexpot.
So why not forget the faults, the disappointments, the marital black patches of the past and start having an affair with your husband? Today.
Because, sad to say if, as you read this, you are already blushing and giggling and nibbling your spouse’s ear then the chances are you only got married last Saturday.
lf, on the other hand, you are sitting across from a great, grey, greasy, ageing mass who habitually snoozes his time away in the best armchair then you have my sympathy. But even for him and for you, this could be a turning point.
And for the rest of us, well, if you are not having an affair with your husband, then ask yourself – who is?