On Marriage

Marriage is all about compromise. Children too! If you are not willing to compromise on the lifestyle you lead with your partner, and neither are they then I’m not sure whether it will work out. Ok, actually I am not qualified at all to speak on marriage given that I have not been married for 45 years. My wife and I have successfully negotiated our way through 8 years of marriage. We are happily looking forward to the proverbial 10 year itch or have we just passed the 7 year itch but could honestly say we are happy.

Yes sure we have our down days. At times we will argue. I am what my wife calls a passive aggressive individual. This means I avoid conflict at all costs so will just agree with her and then do things my own way anyway.

We recently looked to get a second car given we were both working from home and needed the extra car to get around. Now cars (especially second-hand cars) are fortunately not too expensive in the UK, but it was nevertheless a fairly big financial decision to be made and probably needed both our consent. We discussed broadly the parameters, i.e. that we were keen on a seven seater but not necessarily the make. I always had a land rover fetish so when I saw a dodgy land rover in Birmingham for sale and the photos looked great, I ended up bidding for it on eBay and then (rather sheepishly) winning and buying it. My wife was livid! I mean, I never involved her in the decision making process and didn’t even advise her I had bid. It was a bombshell dropped in her lap.

Now the sub lesson in all this, is never buy a used car on eBay! Especially without going to look at it. My reasoning was I had lowballed the bid (GBP820) and could may be spend another GBP1000 on it to get it up to a serviceable level. A good mechanic took one look and said honestly to me “It looks like Swiss cheese under there – get rid of it mate.” So I was the proud owner of a land rover discovery 1998 model for all of 2 months. I had to relist it with a more honest advert and managed to sell it for GBP510 to someone exporting to Cyprus. He wasn't as concerned for the underbody as he was looking for the interior and body of the actual car which in this case were pretty good and had an alternative chassis to mount it on. So for me it was a GBP300 lesson in looking at what you are buying even when it appears the bargain of the century and to take along a good mechanic.

So back to an angry wife who had now been vindicated that her husband was a complete klutz who had been sodomised on eBay! A true reflection I might add. Adding insult to injury I then went and saw (ok I had learnt that lesson) and bought a Toyota Verso in London after seeing it advertised. The lady I bought it from actually said there were a number of disappointed buyers when I took her the money the next day and picked up the car. I didn’t make the same monumental technical mistake and had this car serviced a few months later with no real issues, which was a plus but still had failed to involve my wife in the decision making process.

I’m still not sure to this day what was going through my head. I can only think that on some primitive primeval level I was the hunter, she was the gatherer and this was a hunting decision! Anyway she didn’t get that analogy and I was in a whole heap of trouble for a few weeks. But at the end of the day, my wife is forgiving and cognisant that occasionally she makes decisions without involving me. Like promising the kids that Dad would build a treehouse without informing him first! But the prime lesson we have is that at least we communicate. Most nights when we climb into bed, we chat about our days, share our problems and expand on our successes. My wife still somehow finds me amusing even after knowing me for the last 12 years.