City men; Country wives

I think there have been books written about this and films and I know there have been plenty of lies but it’s strange to be living it – City men and country wives.

It’s not what I thought would happen to me when we got married. I didn’t expect to be stuck out in the countryside in a large house which we can ill afford to run let alone pay for.

Don’t get me wrong, I am lucky I have all this but I’d give my right arm not to. I envy those wives whose husbands are home in time for supper, whose kids see their dad every day at breakfast.

I tackled him about it last night saying that things had got to change for all of us. I begged. I threatened. I pleaded and I even cried.

But you know what the whole thing was turned on me. The reason we are in this situation is because of me.

Now I don’t remember saying I wanted to live in a big house in the country, in fact what I did say was we had to move from Streatham because he wouldn’t let me change the décor which his last girl-friend had done nor move any of my stuff in. It was a huge bone of contention in our first year of marriage and nearly caused me to leave.

Perhaps I should have done.

But then I wouldn’t have had my boys.

I am not asking to move now, for I realise that my husband won’t. I am asking that he puts us, his wife and his kids a little higher up his agenda.

He says I am too dramatic and that I am always whinging about my lot when I should be grateful. A little of me agrees. But like many a country wife before me I am lonely. I miss my husband.

We don’t talk much because we are both so tired at the end of the day. It seems that all the energy we can muster goes on eating supper in front of the telly. Actually, I now have supper with the boys because he never tells me when he is coming home and I hate eating on my own.

When I point this out he rounds on me saying that when he is at home of an evening I am always upstairs on the computer. I wouldn’t be if I was given some warning I should have said, but you know when you are in the middle of an argument the words you wish to say just get stuck in your throat.

He’s not a bad man. He can be utterly delightful but he is in the thrall of another – his work; a mistress who is sucking my man dry and giving him delusions of grandeur. He’s the big I AM.

And he thinks he is being reasonable.

He thinks his life is perfectly fine and because he thinks so I should as well.

I tried to make him understand that his life would not be perfect if I weren’t here. It just wouldn’t happen and do you know what his reply was?

“You always look at the worst case scenario! If you weren’t here. If something happened to you, your parents would rally round and so would mine.”

So that is where I stand. A country wife married to a City Man.