All men are bastards

Man at Work

Most girls are brought up knowing this; it’s part of an international female psyche on all levels - not just when your boyfriend dumps you. It’s there on a political, social and emotional level. Its realisation is part of growing up.

But as a mother of boys I am beginning to reassess these assumptions and take a particular look especially on the relationship front.

I have the privilege to be surrounded by men; in fact the whole of my working life I has been dominated by men; firstly in the farming sphere as an agricultural student then farming reporter, then in the property world as corporate PR and features writer extraordinaire and finally working with a myriad of builders over the last decade turning a romantic wreck into a glorious home here in Suffolk.

I am comfortable with that but throughout it all, I held strongly to the tenet that: all men were bastards, and knowing this has kept me linked, however tenuously, to the sorority of females the world over.

However the stories and tales I have been told over the years in this rarefied male atmosphere has made me look again at this confusing species.

Perhaps they are not as bad as they are made out to be. Perhaps my boys are not going to grow up to be bastards who rip through a myriad of females in a quest to satisfy their baser natures. Perhaps instead of having to apologise to distraught young girls and assuage their grief because my sons’ have done a bunk, I will be needed to care for my boys’ broken hearts.

The female of the species seems far more hard-nosed, mercurial, warped even than I could ever give credit. In fact for every tale of a man doing something truly despicable I hear several of women doing considerably worse.

The thing I think that makes it harder for a man is that society is disinclined to allow a bloke to show his feelings especially when a girl dumps him/runs off with his best mate/plays emotional ping pong with him/or even physically attacks him.

They are not allowed to cry, grieve for a lost relationship/feel scared etc. they just have to stand there like a sacrificial ox and show nothing whatsoever.

I suppose I am now in that honoured position of not just being a mother to boys of my own, but also mother figure to all those who work for me thus I am safe to talk to – I am told it is a privilege of age. (I don’t like it but I am getting used to it)

I’ve seen starry eyed boys crushed learning of betrayal, of grown men reduced to sobbing in dark corners when dumped for no obvious reason. I’ve seen them rant and rave at the unfairness as a partner leaves taking everything from their home right down to the kitchen sink and curtains in a petty act of revenge. I’ve seen them quake in fear as they listen to deranged threats not just against them but against their children because a two week fling has come to an end.

I am privy to many secrets of the heart and am expected to dole out sage advice when necessary. I am getting it down to a fine art. Usually it’s along the lines of:

“It will all come out right in the wash.”

“She didn’t deserve you.”

“There are plenty of fish in the sea.”

And my own personal favourite after many, many years of listening: “Look for God’s sake don’t charge on in there, give yourself time to get over her. There’s nothing worse than a rebound relationship.”

Sometimes I even - and I feel this a betrayal of the sisterhood - advise: “Look just go for a one night stand; you need sex and fun not a full blown relationship right now.”

And in all of this I am learning - not all men are bastards…

City Men: Country Wives - A breakthrough?

So I told you that he was away in London and that I was left home alone? Well I think he’s beginning to see things my way. Not that we’ll ever get to move out of this place I fear we are in negative equity after spending a small fortune on its refurbishment. But despite the fact that I never wanted to live in the back of beyond it is a little late to be upping sticks and causing mayhem when the hard truth is I don’t have a fantastic job to go to nor am I the only one I have to think about.

I’ve got two boys and they are happy at school.

They have known nowhere else but here.

And I really HAVE got to get over myself.

So where might my man’s thoughts be aimed?

Well he’s actually going to be working from home tomorrow.

That means he gets to have breakfast with us, he gets to do the school run in the morning and meet the boy’s teachers, he gets to have lunch with me – I promise it IS an experience!

A good one

Honest!

There will be no commute.

He can finish at 5 and be home instantaneously.

Heck we might even be able to have a conversation before he heads off to the drinks cupboard in search of whisky like a drowning man and before I grab the screw top wine from the fridge and cling to it like a life raft for the rest of the evening.

And do you know what else?

I am actually looking forward to him returning home!

They do say absence makes the heart go fonder….

City Men: Country Wives - Drowning not waving!

The Money Pit!

Today I sat on the stairs and bawled my eyes out in front of my best mate. J said  little but just looked at me as I rambled on between hiccoughing sobs careless of my eye-makeup, careless of the snot dripping from my nose.

He’s the type of guy you feel safe to do this in front of, it’s why we chose him, to be Godfather to Bog Boy after all. There needed to be someone here that could act as a buffer for me and the children when it all gets on top of me.

And today I felt like I was drowning not waving…

I remarked it doesn’t take much anymore to have me off in hysterics. But honestly I haven’t cried like this for years. Some say it’s cathartic to have a jolly good cry perhaps they are right. My eyes ache now and I feel like it must be at least midnight but there again the utter exhaustion may help me sleep better and tomorrow will be brighter.

It certainly felt anything but bright at 2pm this afternoon as I sat there snot dripping.

“I hate this place, I loathe it. I’m selling it!” I howled and punctuated my statement by stamping me feet on the stairs until they rattled.

The house was unmoved.

It’s heard it all before, especially from me.

“I can’t take it anymore, I can’t do it anymore.” I wailed.

I looked at J and I could see he was about to say that I could and I have done and I will so I forestalled him.

“I don’t want to do it anymore,” I heaved out between sobs, “I don’t want to cope. I want to make it stop!”

“I hate Suffolk. I hate this place. I never wanted to come here!” I continued to wail. “And the fact that I don’t have the Internet is just too much…”

We have the honour, nay privilege, of living in an Internet black spot and I have to get my connection with the big bad outside world via a convoluted and complicated network of routers and satellite dishes as BT  ain't that interested. It works, usually but every now and then, especially when I am on a deadline, it doesn't.

Then I have to get in touch with Ra. Ra is godlike but like most ancient gods one isn't actually too sure they exist. I have evidence that people round here believe he exists but I haven't actually seen him in so long that I fear he is now mere legend. He NEVER answers his phone and he NEVER tells you what is going on. So I tend to leave increasingly and frequently more and more bizarre messages in my efforts to contact him and more importantly getting him to contact me to say that he has heard what I am saying and that he know and is dealing with t4he problem. NOW!

You get the God like drift here. Basically you have to put your trust in Ra and he will deliver.

Sometime though I actually need to hear that on the telephone. And after four hours of futile calls. texts and general frustration it was all too much.

J gave me a great big hug and I sobbed some more leaving a nice snotty trail down the front of his jumper.

He held onto my shoulders and looked me in the eye: “It’s not just about the fact that you don’t have the Internet again is it,” he said.

That man knows me too well.

Of course it wasn’t about the Internet though as I said it was the last straw.

Suffolk is a funny place. You actually have to want to go there as it’s not on the way to anywhere in particular. It’s sort of a dead end. A bucolic, slightly dirty and otherworldly, dead end with a Nuclear reactor on its coast.

I am sure there are plenty of people who love Suffolk but having been dragged here by my husband seemingly on a whim because he said so with no  real thought having gone into it a decade before I am still kind of immune to its charms.

I know I should have got over myself but when things like the Internet goes down for four days and I cannot do my work let alone blog or tweet or indeed even email it just reinforces how terribly isolated the place is.

I did SO love London and I had SUCH a great job, one I enjoyed and was actually good at and having to give that all up to take on a 500 year old decrepit house (even if I was one half of the idiot pair that fell head over heels in love with it and bought it willy nilly) spend ten years doing it up, squandering oodles, and I mean oodles, of thousands of pounds on it foregoing holidays, new clothes, new cars and god know what else – it sometimes just doesn’t feel worth it.

Not when I still have oodles and oodles STILL needing spent on the damn place because I got diddled by the original builders we employed (but that’s another story).

So sitting in those stairs eye makeup smeared down my face, snot dripping and hiccoughing I admitted it.

“Charlie is going to London!” I broke down into hysterical sobs again. “It wasn’t part of the deal!”

No the deal stated that if I did HAVE to go and live in the back of beyond HE was going to be coming home every night – because after all I HAD given up and AWFUL lot.

But times change and sometimes you get new jobs and sometimes there is an economic downturn and your house has eaten up every last cent so your husband has to work harder than ever before and you’ll just have to accept that you need to be a tad more flexible about life.

But it doesn’t mean you have to like it.

And I don’t.

I don’t want Charlie to be renting out someone’s spare room during the week in London, I want him home not because of the deal but because I am going to miss him.

Terribly.

PS. It still pisses me something chronic though that the Internet is so unreliable…blooming backward county!

Why Not Having My Husband Around Might Save Our Marriage

Seriously over the last two years it’s been tough as I watch my husband become enthralled with his new job to the extent that me, his wife, and our two boys seem to disappear off his radar.

When he does get home, invariably after the boys have gone to bed and sometimes even when I have, he’s exhausted and we barley manage supper let alone a conversation.

It doesn’t get much better at weekends with him having siestas in order to catch up while I try to entertain the boys and not wake up Daddy.

I’ve said it before; it’s not much of a family life.

So me saying that not having him around just might save our marriage may seem a bit strange. But I really think it will help.

Enormously. 

In fact I am really looking forward to it.

The idea is that he stays up in London three or four nights a week and comes home at the end of the week rested and restored because he does not have to commute. You never know he may even make it home early on the nights he does come back because he has had the freedom to work late while he is in London.

A friend is renting a two bedroom flat and has a room spare during the early part of the week and this could be perfect for us. It’s in an area we used to live in and where a lot of our London friends still reside.

Dear Charlie could drive down on a Sunday night, bicycle into work at Blackfriars all week, then drive back on a Thursday night. Commute in by train on Friday and that’s it.

Only one day of having to get up at 5am!

Only one day a week of train commuting.

Bearing in mind it costs us £6000 a year for him to commute this must surely be a win:win solution in more ways than one for us!

Why didn’t I think of it before!

You never know we may land up renting our own flat and then I could pop down during the week…we may even be able to go out…!!!!

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.

When he is late….

When he is late I think the worst. I can’t help it. I try to watch the TV, to read, to cook, to tidy up anything to occupy myself, I really do! But I just can’t help myself, I keep thinking that somehow something terrible has happened and that is why he is late.

After so many years of marriage I should be used to his tardiness but each time is exactly like the first.

It would be fine if only he answered his mobile phone but invariably, he never does. When I yell berate him for not answering when he finally deigns to return home, he looks bewildered and says inane things like

“Sorry it ran out of battery.”

“I had it on silent.”

“It was in my suitcase.”

“I was sleeping.”

“Paltry excuses!” I fume, but to be honest I am too relieved to see him home safe to take it any further.

I am not saying I worry exactly when he is a little late; it’s when he is hours late that I twitch. When he has told me he’s going to be home early and then he is late.

“I had to go for drinks.”

“I forgot to tell you…”

He obviously has no clue about what he is putting me through.

First of all it is the dread, and then it is the practicalities of a life without him. How will I cope? Will we have enough money? Will I have to sell our home? And I go into these in HUGE detail almost down to the last penny. For the biggest worry of course is money and being able to support the boys until they are old enough to support themselves.

I don’t dwell on how I would feel if he weren’t around anymore that is just too much to contemplate, a void. It has to be about getting things done and sorted and surviving.

There are times when he is late that I could cheerfully throttle him then and there on the doorstep for putting me through all the crap but then of course I remember that it was me not him that was doing the thinking and that is the problem…Dear Charlie just doesn't!

The first time he did it was on a Friday night and we had friends round for supper. We waited and waited and waited by 9 o’clock I was frantic with worry while trying not to let it show and laughing and joking and keeping everyone entertained.

He should have been home at 7pm to help me. Guests arrived at 8 and I just kept hoping and hoping and hoping. And getting more and more drunk as my nerves frayed.

Finally I admitted the truth I had no idea where my husband was and we started to phone round the hospitals and just as I was on the phone to the police he bowled up on his bicycle.

“Oh, hello!” he says to everyone with a broad grin, “didn’t expect to see you here!”

He’s done it many times since but it will always be like the first time to me…