For twenty years I endured my lazy, impudent wife. She was a country girl whod come up to London for her university studies. She went to every party going, and it was at one of them that I first met her. After just one night together, she ended up pregnant. Being the straightforward man I am, I married herno arguments, no trying to dodge responsibility. For a while, I even believed Id fallen in love with her.
She was beautiful, cunning, and she could cook a dinner that would make anyone forget their troubles. My parents helped us get our first flat, we did it up ourselves, and we raised our little girl together. Married life was a joy, not a burden. But slowly, things changed. My wife wanted to be out again, seeing friends, heading out on the town, while our daughter was left with her grandparents or me.
She never took an interest in Alices progress at school, not even once turning up to a parents evening. I always went. We fought about it constantly, and she was forever threatening to leave me. Honestly, Id have left myself if not for AliceI didnt want her growing up feeling she came from anything less than a proper family.
When the time came for the divorce, I approached it with a clear head. Firstly, I had somewhere else to go once I left the flat, and secondly, Alice was now twenty, engaged to a good, steady young man, and set to marry him any day. There was nothing holding me to my wife anymore, no affection, nothingnot when she spent all her days dashing about with her friends, shirking work, and playing games with my head.
She went with me to sign the divorce papers, still thinking I was winding her up. But I wasnt. Now, Im in a new relationship with a truly lovely woman, but my ex cant leave it alone. She tries to turn Alice against me, gossips to our friends about what a scoundrel I am, or moans to her own family that I didnt leave her a single penny, that she cant even scrape together the rent.
All I can do is hope that, sooner or later, shell calm down, see reason, and finally let go of her bitterness over the end of our marriage.
