It’s neglected wives who deserve a gold medal

LIKe many people, I have huge admiration for James Cracknell, the olympic rower who, on Sunday, helped Cambridge University beat oxford in the annual boat race.

For a man of 46 to have pulled his weight alongside athletes half his age was truly remarkable. It required not only supreme stamina and sportsmanship, but the kind of singleminded determination that few people possess.

Yet, no sooner was the champagne flowing than his soontobe exwife, Beverley, detailed the phenomenal cost to their marriage of his ambition, describing his actions as ‘an absolute dereliction of parenting and marital duty’.

In a masterpiece of restrained fury, she outlined how Cracknell’s endeavour had taken him away from his home and three children for eight solid months. And, as for the notion that their father’s feat was somehow inspirational, that was ‘bo***cks’.

‘I wouldn’t want my children to view such an exit from familial responsibilities as something to aspire to,’ she added. ouch!

But this is more than just the bitter sting of a relationship in breakdown. For much of what she says will, I suspect, have resonated with a great many women.

I was particularly struck by the passage where Beverley wrote: ‘My generation of women aren’t quite so keen to selfabnegate in the manner of our forebears.’

SHE’S right. There was a time, not so very long ago, when practically a wife’s sole function was to stand meekly on the sidelines while smoothing her husband’s path to glory.

But those days are gone. Most of us now view marriage as a partnership where both parties share equal responsibilities — from paying the mortgage to bathing the kids.

We want companionship as well as security, a shared sense of identity and, as Beverley puts it, someone ‘to drink Buck’s Fizz with on the beach’.

It doesn’t matter whether your husband is an olympic rower, a banker, a teacher or a taxi driver; without that vital companionship, marriages flounder.

Women are natural facilitators; enablers. Many of us make natural backstage hands, adept at helping others shine, whether it be our children or our partners. even now, after decades of feminism, we still have a tendency to put the needs of others before our own. That’s a sacrifice many willingly make for the greater good of their families. And when it works, it’s the basis for great happiness.

But when the other person fails to appreciate their spouse’s efforts — in short, takes them for granted — that’s when the rot sets in.

It may take months, it may take years (in the Cracknells’ case, 17 years), but if the time comes when it’s all take and no give, then the woman starts to feel less like a trusted and cherished life partner and more an unpaid housekeeper/ childcarer/general skivvy.

Beverley describes her ‘ silent screams in the shower’. I imagine it as being trapped on one side of a twoway mirror: you can see the person, but they can’t see — or hear — you.

And the truth is that there are few lonelier places than a lonely marriage.

James Cracknell may be the one with all the sporting trophies, but, for my money, Beverley is equally deserving of a gold medal.

Not just for supporting him all these years, but also for being so brutally honest about the reality many still face.

And for reminding us all that behind every great man is not necessarily a great woman — but almost certainly a lonely one.