I met my husband at college. He was a shy northerner with a dramatic bent; I was a posh “good-time girl”. The way he tells it, meeting me was like opening Pandora’s fun box: out came the strobe lights, fancy dress and vodka shots, and he’s never looked back.
Not that I wanted him to – our time together was way too much fun! College done, our courtship cavorted through a whirl of festivals and adventure holidays. In our 20s, we dated and partied. Hitting our 30s, we married and dinner-partied. Whatever the soirée, I was the life and soul of it. I danced on tables, flirted with strangers, fell down the odd flight of stairs, knowing my husband would be there to catch me. Nothing I could do embarrassed him. The more outrageous the better – as long as it made us laugh; as long as we were in it together.
Parenthood, we vowed, wouldn’t dull us. While other couples succumbed to suburban slump, we locked down a local babysitter, and kept doggedly having fun, whatever the cost to our health – or our children’s. One night I whisked our feverish five-year-old to A&E; got her diagnosed with (and dosed up for) scarlet fever and back to the babysitter in time for hubby and me to attend a vicars and tarts party.
But gradually my priorities shifted – or maybe my batteries simply ran down? My husband, I fear, would say a light went out. My bedside light for sure: it’s now a “wild night” for me if I’m up past 9pm. I don’t want cocktails and male strippers, I want a hot bath and a well-thumbed Agatha Christie. My husband can’t understand it, and nor can I, if I’m honest. Finally, the children are grown. We’ve still got our health, and a smidgen of wealth – why not head out, and resummon the shared laughs of our youth? Perhaps because our youth is gone… and there’s less to laugh about.
My husband, certainly, is starting to look grim. He no longer finds it funny when I duck out early from a drinks party that we’re holding. When he takes me out for dinner, he’s hurt that I don’t want to go dancing afterwards. For him, “fun” is the key component of what makes us… us. But these days fun, for me, begins – and ends – at home. I don’t want to be in someone else’s house after 10pm. Let alone a nightclub: the sight of a dance floor just means sore feet and an impending hangover. A dinner party means I can sit down, but invariably I’ll be bored by whoever I’m sat next to.
Perhaps that’s the nub of it. I just find it all a bit… boring. When we socialise, it’s always with the same people. And I always know how the night is going to end: in an early Uber home with my increasingly disgruntled husband.
After a few drunken rows (him: “Why can’t we swing by Nigel and Sandra’s?” Me: “Because it’s 3am!”) we’ve reached a compromise: my husband goes out and has fun; next day, he regales me with all the gory details!
Recently, however, I’ve started to notice there’s… less detail. And names that are new to me. Female names. My husband, it’s struck me belatedly, has acquired the social cachet of a single man. While I stay on the sofa, he’s out partying with the fun wives of his friends; more worryingly, their fun second wives. I write this having just waved off my husband – bright-eyed and bushy-tailed – for a “clubbing weekend” with his mates. What if he doesn’t come back?
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