In April 2011 I wrote a Diary entitled "Being a Dad". It was decently well received and is the type of subject that I enjoy writing about. I am always grateful when others find something they can take from it.
I am not just a Dad though. I am also a husband and an individual. That suggests that there are two more Diaries in this particular series. One needs to focus on how one retains their individuality, in the context of being a Dad and a husband.
This Diary is about the "husband" bit.
Were it possible, I would make it more obvious that I am an "equal opportunity" Diarist, who wholly recognises that there are many different types of partnerships. I would choose, for example, a pink backdrop to match the shirts I like to wear, and border the whole Diary with rainbows.
Each partner, in any relationship (with the possible exception of the Welsh, and their sheep), has to make the adjustments I describe below, and for each the rewards are similar. I am a heterosexual male, and married a woman, well, two actually but consecutively rather than the concurrent type favoured by some. I value my relationship because it is mine, but I do not seek to elevate it above any other.
I do not personally know any Transgender couples. The few gay couples I have met, and been able to observe suggests to me that they are broadly the same. Same hopes, same ambitions, same frustrations with a few unique to them, thrown in for good measure. They also have the same fears and potentially the same outcomes. That last bit is anecdotal, because I don't have figures and I do appreciate that the pressures from society are different. Given a level playing field, then who knows.
I stayed single for a long time. Heh ... as long as I decently could without folks considering me to be a "confirmed bachelor". Thirty is not old to get married, but it is probably a little above average. At least until I met my first wife I did enjoy the "single" life, fully!
This marriage, my second, is for keeps. Yes, I know that is a bit presumptuous but, with good health and an accident free future, I just know. There will be those reading this who also "just know". They may not know why they know, indeed, I don't either, but there comes a point where there is a certainty that your mind's eye cannot deny. There will be others thinking "How can he be so certain?" and "Is that not just a recipe for complacency?".
Well it took me two attempts and here is the essential difference between them ...
My first wife, a wonderful woman and terrific Mum to our boys, was someone who I imagined spending my whole life with. My second wife is a little different. She is someone that I cannot imagine living without!
Something changes when you meet a partner like that. I thought that had happened first time round well, at least for a while. It isn't so much that you make accommodations, allowances, become a little more selfless. You do all of those things, of course, but that isn't it. It's more subtle than that. What seems to happen is that rather than accommodating the needs of another, those needs become your needs. In my case, Jodie's desires, needs and wants aren't hers for me to incorporate, they are mine too.
It still bothers me that that didn't happen in my first marriage. It took me a while, but I came to realise that I had short-changed my wife. That she never had a marriage in the fullest sense, the sense that I now understand is possible. I know that I didn't either, but this is me simply owning my part.
All the things that are fodder for the late-night comedians, and any other comedians, actually, that mark the failure of a husband to perform his expected role are cute, but they aren't real. Remembering stuff. Birthdays, Anniversaries, the names of your children, cats, dogs etcetera. It's deeply amusing when a guy forgets that stuff, and the shed is a very cold place to be sleeping if her birthday is in January. I am luckier than most, my wife was born in August. Still, remembering helps late August and early September run smoothly.
It isn't about that though. Rich or poor it's not the cards, the presents and the flowers that count. It's any indication, however tiny, that you valued another enough to go the extra mile. In my case it wasn't, for me, the desperate desire for her to have a Birthday Cake with the number "40" perched on top. It was waking up that morning, the day she started back at school, and my need to actually bake her a cake. That and the realisation that she would understand what I was saying to her by baking a cake rather than running out to buy one. That is one of my examples, you will have your own.
There is some psychology stuff in there about pair-bonding, but it's boring when all we need to understand is that you are in the right place when you don't feel you are compromising, or sacrificing for another, but that their wants and needs become your triggers and desires.
Jodie does it too. As some of you know, I ride a motorcycle. Sometimes I ride it a long way. Not a couple of hundred miles on a sunny Sunday, which is quite long enough for most and I don't blame them, but one thousand miles, or fifteen hundred miles, in twenty four hours or less. Why? Because I can, and because it tests me, and because I hate running.
I don't think Jodie likes it much. She loves our joint rides, to a comfy motel with with a whirlpool spa, but she gets a bit scared by the other stuff. She backs me up to the hilt, never complains or objects and when I disappear off into the night she gets her Mom on the phone and they follow me on the internet. She even makes suggestions of rides I might enjoy. My need for this small bit of individualism has become her need for me to do it.
I still forget stuff. I regularly either don't hear her, or don't listen. I never forget just how lucky I am.
We are reaching the end of my rambling. I do not seek to educate anyone or even explain much. I just want to tell you how it is for me, to be a husband, in the hope that there are those who might read this and recognise their own good fortune, with the partner of their choice.
If there is a wider point it would simply be that, as adults, we make these choices, and they are ours to make. They are not a matter for outsiders to comment upon. They are an issue for governments only to the extent that they are able to support our choices, they do not get to Legislate them.
I wish you all the happiness I have found.