Tag: love

Significant other 5

I’ve fixed for one of our more eccentric friends to come to supper. She’s a sculptress and farms 5 acres on her own in a slap happy way. She had a husband but said, ‘Oh, I got rid of him’!!!

Did I tell you X’s elder daughter is divorcing her husband – with 3 young she won’t have an easy time – but she married him against all opposition.

I’m not sure if X is going to remove Y from your evil influence or disapproves of the flat or hopes to accommodate her himself??!! Maddening if he does for any reason, just when you’re settled.

X had another school dance on Friday – put on by the 6th form. The dreary fat Y’s mama made up a party of 6 and had them to dinner first. Evidently not one of the boys asked any of the girls to dance and Y only danced with her brother who’d sneaked in without a ticket. However X was cheerful enough as she’d danced all the evening with another boy she’d ‘seen on the train’!

Have heard from X that her daughter’s husband has died – sounds a blessing to me – but she may be v. sad.

They are in the middle of a horrible divorce and he still suffers from depression. I’m sure he will recover when the pressure and rows are over.

His daughter has come unstuck from the reputedly very rich man she was engaged to last year, apparently losing the contents of her bank account in the process. He was discovered to have a record for fraud etc.

X and I have excelled ourselves again. We went into a JUNIOR bridge tournament last week and, yes you’ve guessed, we were bottom again!! He put a chauvinistic pig rhyme on my desk just afterwards:

‘There was an old man who said dash, Why am I and my wife both so rash? If she called with reserve, There’d be room for my verve, in playing the hand with panache.’

 

She has asked me in front of him if I’ll give him his birthday dinner as they can’t afford another party!!!

Said friend has since died, leaving her very boorish husband much lost and realising for the first time what a wonderful wife she was.

But when she died…

I had a hard time writing to X and put it off for as long as I could. I fear the change of relationship from having short bursts of fun living whilst he played hookey from home and reality, to her being home and reality, and he with an added guilt complex on top of it, might prove to be rather an anticlimax. She’d do better to close the book on the past 12 years and start afresh with her other pursuer. I’d have no sympathy with Y if she did!!! (I didn’t actually SAY all this when I wrote!!)

It was amusing your remarks about X’s man. When I told Y they’d got engaged, she remarked, ‘not to that drip, she must be mad’! I do hope for her sake you’re both wrong. She sounds so nice, and deserves better.

Significant other – 3

 Did I tell you the sad news of the Xs? Long letter her saying he had taken a year’s sabbatical from her?! and had produced a legal document to say he could live as a single man for a year – now I’ve heard everything! There was a terrific shindy with the tax dept – and it came out that their accountant just hadn’t been sending in all the figures and none at all for one year. It ended up with him having to pay $1,000,000 in back payments and fines – and by mortgaging houses and using money he’d ‘kept fluid ’ was able to pay up – but once in the clear he removed his entire studio and gallery to another State and left her to look after their 4 houses and keep an eye on the family.

She can do nothing right – she’s busy trying to organise a tour of Europe next year – with him and X in a hired caravan. My heart sinks at the idea – 3 months – horrors!

I asked if she still saw X and she said no, he didn’t like her lawyer – but she did – she’d obviously had a big settlement in her favour over the divorce!! Sad he does not seem to enjoy things much.

News of X’s marriage sounds v. odd, do you know what he’s like? I don’t envy him, their house will be in chaos.

living in chaos

X’s hasty wedding was a bit odd too – what does he do workwise – one O Level and looking after chickens is not full of hope for the upkeep of his new wife.

I thought I’d offer X something on time this Xmas and offered her a duvet but she says Y likes a heavy weight on him. I suppose I could give him a length of rope and a block of concrete!

The boyfriend is large and basic (who looks very nice to give him his due) with little education. She says if they were to marry and have a family she wouldn’t mind his looking after the babies and house, as she certainly wasn’t going to stay and look after them. She got quite irate with me when I said I couldn’t imagine his doing it as his friends would think it such a joke – she said couldn’t I see her understanding of it, and I must realise things were different nowadays, and so on – I understood exactly what she meant but didn’t agree with her!

One of our bridge 4 is failing visibly all the time and has difficulty speaking clearly (Parkinson’s) so her husband won’t talk to her and has taken over the kitchen to the extent he’s had it all redone to his choice of everything whilst she was put in a home with a retired nurse. It’s not a happy set up, with the added difficulty of a friend of theirs who’s practically an accepted 3rd in the house and does all the things with him that she can no longer do – walking, swimming – and we’re not sure what else!

He’s 23, fairly big, got curly hair and big curly sideboards and a bit of an extravert.

My changing room environment was emotionally taxing as there were 4 of us – the other three single, but one had just split up with a boyfriend of 2 1/2 years and the other two were involved with married men, one of them with lots of strife.

Let me give you a little word of advice: don’t marry someone you’ve only known for a few months!

The thing we can’t understand is why X thinks he is so marvellous. When she told me that he had aged 5 years in the past 2 weeks the other day, my cynical thought was ‘that makes him 15’ but I didn’t say that cos I didn’t feel it would help.

The marriage day was all perfection. The garden glowed with flowers, the sun burst out of the blue sky – X and I stood up by the altar table – behind us was an arbour we’d made and covered with a fish net with flowers and ferns twined in it. In front of us the people (about 40) sat in a semi-circle of benches we’d made out of driftwood from the beach. X had written the liturgy, and as well there were poems – Fernhill by Dylan Thomas, and I read one by Yevtushenku called Colours – and guitar and dulcimer music. I was bursting with excitement and joy. Everyone was smiling and serious at the same time.

I won’t have told you I had a ‘Dear John’ letter from X in October. I was very sad, and really it wasn’t as bad as all that. It is difficult to keep up a romance when people are 7000 miles apart. He met someone else, and it was only a matter of time before I would have been writing the same sort of letter as on Oct. 10 I fell somewhat for a 6’2” hunk of superb Canadian manhood. Absolutely terrific guy.

Celebrations 3

After the ceremony we moved to the food table in the garden which looked magnificent piled with meat (I’d cooked a 24 lb turkey two nights before!) and salads and homemade bread and cheese and fruit – and wine too of course. And a cake which my mother ended up by cutting because she seemed to do it much more efficiently than me! In the middle of the feast much excitement and commotion when a huge telegraph pole crashed in slow motion outside the cottage – hurting no one luckily! But it cut the electricity and telephone. Present-opening in the garden, and a friend of ours did magic tricks and we made some ‘speeches’ – my father made a great one, very lovely, calling everyone there ‘friends’ and welcoming X into the family. My parents adored every minute of it and everyone thought they were great – no one wanted them to leave when they did.

Christmas was really quiet. X went home returning to tell us of all the huge and wonderful meals her mum and relatives served her while we who stayed here starved on scraps in the staff ‘Beanery’. The food is really atrocious, and they didn’t lay anything special on for Xmas, which was pretty miserable of them I thought.

Scraps at the Beanery

X was old enough this year to really enjoy his birthday. Y came up and we celebrated with just us and her. Little X loved opening all his pressies with great excitement and then we had some party tea. It all went very nicely.

We had a big staff party on Christmas Eve, which was pretty good, got up late on Christmas Day and generally lazed around. New Year’s Eve we, 8 of us, went for a sooper dooper meal with dancing afterwards which was really good. We don’t get out too often, as the townsite is 4 miles away, and the road is like an ice rink, and cabs are expensive.

I really envied you the fireworks and the general crazy feeling you get in London on an occasion like that [Charles’ & Diana’s wedding] I think the last one I went to was 1945 at the end of the war.

We made Guy Fawkes a movable feast (it was pouring with rain on the actual night), and late Saturday night had a huge slash-fire as a bonfire, roasting wieners on sticks and sitting around the fire drinking beer – also dancing in the field to music on the radio. Halfway through the evening it began to snow, but it was only light and we kept on eating and drinking and dancing. It was really exciting, with the huge fires and the snow, and X read to us about the ancient history of fire celebrations.

My birthday was really fabulous. The party in the evening was really marvellous. There were 20 of us altogether at the most expensive and best restaurant in town. It was a fabulous turnout and he had menus specially written for us and 2 birthday cakes to have at the end of our 7 or 8 course meal! We arrived at 8 and didn’t leave until something like 1.30 or 2. But it was a wonderful evening.

Sex appeal and influence

I think he is very swade [sic] by her influance [sic] as to what they do with their time but love seems to do that to people. [Spelling not a strong point!]

I wrote and told her my memories of her mother – I said how jealous we all were at her ability to attract every man that set eyes on her  …   (perhaps this had something to do with her refusing to write her memoir for the family saying there were so many things she’d done in her life that she wasn’t proud of and much regretted.) Actually I didn’t tell X her mother was not attractive to look at and very shy but had tremendous sex appeal! Infuriating for her sister as all her male friends were grabbed up…

We borrowed X’s ram yesterday. Y brought it for us. As he drove up all our ewes moved up to the gate and accorded him a great welcome which he reciprocated in a most definite manner before the truck had even driven off. Undoubtedly a randy ram. [One has to work out whether ‘he’ is the driver or the ram!!!]

I absolutely agree about X – she is a delight to talk to as one gets to know her and is so attractive. My dear, imagine meeting Y and her together and you can see how I sink into the ground!! And I am old and not feeling in the competitive age – it must be ghastly for plain Janes to meet a couple like that at a party, although both are really so nice but do look rather out of this world. Not that you have any reason for feeling like an elephant but they have some sort of mysterious poise that is defeating, and automatically makes the rest of us feel boringly dull.

plain Jane sinks into the ground

Significant other

He’s very nice (well, obviously I would think so). He’s very outgoing and has a good sense of humour and is a very caring sort of person too. He gets really involved in what he’s doing and will try his hand at most things. If he’s playing a game he’s quite competitive.

…she was never an amicable woman and made his life a misery and I do not know why he stayed with her at all.

Marriage troubles were pending I knew; finally I slept in the flat for 6 months and threatened my husband ‘we see a counsellor, or move out!!’ Anyhow we have had a breakthrough, although at present I wait for friends to arrive as he won’t see the counsellor any more.

 

he might still be smoking but he's not fat - yet
comparing negatives

I found he had cigarette stubs by his bed again. She says she’d rather he smoked than get fat.

 

We set off after the first night of Club Pairs which I’m playing with a v. pleasant woman this year as X and I seem to be out of step bridge-wise. I think we both do too many psychic bids as we know the other one won’t mind!

X had his hair cut and looked much more presentable – said he was getting a complex as everyone was commenting! It was not I might say at his family’s behest but his girlfriend’s – he sounded quite worried at how obedient he was being!

She is into a great romance with a nice bearded young man who runs a very large property for his father (who is horrid) and will no doubt inherit eventually. Do you think I am very mercenary? But I do like to think of my little darlings being in a stable financial situation and not having to fret over electric bills etc. Of course it may come to nothing!

Wedded bliss (not)

It was a disastrous marriage in a way – they were ‘given’ a farm – and then had constant orders on how to run it by in-laws who knew nothing about it. X could do nothing right as in-laws thought she should sit at home and ‘play ladies’ which she had no intention of doing… she got so fed up she said it was to be her or the in-laws so he gave the farm back and they went to Australia…

Like you, my one hope is that if the separation becomes permanent, which looks likely, they will both manage to pretend they are adults – although I know that’s hard when you are only in your 40s and your ‘ex’ is totally unreasonable, insensitive, a bastard, and wrong to boot. Ho hum: I don’t really envy either of them. 

Double income

Has X managed to sort out her love-life? The joys of marriage!! I think we are better off. I must say I envy a ‘two salary: two can live as cheaply as one’ set up. But there is a price to pay unless you get very lucky. I think I’ll always opt for independence and being poorer!! 

 

I guess she took the attitude that eventually he would be living his own life and felt she had to grab her happiness while she could. Hope it worked out for her.

I gather X has turned out a quite hopeless case. And is married to some girl who refuses to join in any family gatherings, be it Christmas or whatever.

Put asunder

[following divorce] “X has a girlfriend. They met about 4-6 months ago I think. To be perfectly honest, I find it rather weird. She seems like a pretty nice person, although I don’t know her much at all… She is divorced too… I do try and be normal and nice around them, but nothing stops it from being weird (in varying degrees at varying times).”

“Isn’t it sad about X and X. I can well believe that there were factors in their relationship which were always going to be difficult – differences in background, age, etc. – and maybe the real mistake was getting married in the first place…”

parting

“X ran into marital and other chaos and still is not settled after 3 years and is most unhappy. He adores his children – and it is all most distressing to watch as here an ex wife who is a card carrying member of the Female Liberation Movement, and a school marm to boot, makes life a legal and financial nightmare for the ex whose only mistake was to marry (at her insistence) when he was 22.”

Men! Some are ‘not wanted on the voyage’

“You may remember I met X… So – he finally arrived here but no big romance: in fact I was bored and came to the conclusion that I should disregard men entirely. I obviously expect too much or am too romantic or something… He was sweet and generous and kind but I just was not interested… Hopes there will be a future together for us – he will have to be disappointed.”

“I went to X to the Romance Writers Conference… All the romance writers were full-on into romance. I did feel a bit of a fraud as I’m not at all romantic (perhaps I just never met the right person?)”

“I never was enslaved – I was always liberated and enjoyed my life as best I could without harming other people.”

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