Don’t tell my wife – but I had my doubts before we married!
WHAT? Only half? Such was my first reaction yesterday, when I read that 49 per cent of the men and women who divorce admit they had doubts on their wedding day, while two thirds of these had considered calling off the ceremony.
Clearly, we were meant to believe this was a very high figure. Indeed, Amanda McAlister of Slater Gordon, the law firm that commissioned the survey of 1,600 divorcés and divorcées, suggested as much when she said: ‘It is incredibly common for people to go into marriages with doubts. Some clients say they had an early instinct their marriage might not be successful and now regret not listening to that doubt.’
But hang on, I thought. What about those of us (and there must surely be millions) who also had misgivings on our wedding days, but have remained together ever since – and thank our lucky stars that we ignored our doubts?
My mind flew instantly to an old family friend, an immensely distinguished widower, who was preparing in his late sixties to take the plunge again. On the eve of this, his second wedding, he rang his best man in floods of tears.
He couldn’t bear the thought of going through with it, he wailed. In fact, he couldn’t imagine what had possessed him to propose to this ‘ghastly nightmare woman’ (here, I’m quoting the account of his highly indiscreet best man, another old family friend – admittedly never the most reliable of witnesses, being much prone to embellishment).
‘Well, I suppose you’d better call it off, then,’ advised this one old boy to the other.
‘B-b-b-but I can’t!’ sobbed the reluctant groom. ‘They’ve put up an enormous marquee in the garden, and there’s a c-c-c-onvoy of p-pp-pantechnicons from the caterers coming up the drive!’
Now, one of the wisest pieces of advice I was ever given is: ‘Never try to read a marriage.’ So I will not presume to say whether the couple in question are happy or not. All I will report is that the last time I saw them, they gave every outward appearance of being blissfully so.
What’s for sure is that a quarter of a century on, they are still together – he now in his nineties, while she retains that intoxicating mixture of loveliness with perhaps just a dash of feminine nightmarishness that makes me count him one of the luckiest men in the country. I suspect he would agree, and that he now rejoices that the marquee and p-p-p-pantechnicons appeared when they did, making it impossible for him to call the whole thing off.
So what would be interesting to know, I mused as I read yesterday’s survey, is whether people who have pre-match qualms are more or less likely to split than those who don’t. But, no, the findings throw no light on the matter, since those of us who have lasted the course (so far, touch wood) were excluded from the poll. Ah, well, what can you expect from a study commissioned by a law firm, hoping to cash in on failing marriages?
In the absence of any statistics to guide me, therefore, let me advance a theory of my own. Contrary to Slater Gordon’s interpretation, I reckon the truly significant finding of this research is that so very many brides and grooms who went on to divorce – 51 per cent of them, indeed – had no doubts at all when they went to the altar or the register office.
If the lawyers had troubled to interview couples who have stayed together, my guess is that they would have found a great many more than 49 per cent of them worried about whether they were doing the right thing.
Let’s say at least three-quarters of them, perhaps more, with only a small minority absolutely sure. Yes, I know this will sound hideously unromantic of me, but I’ve long thought there are two principal causes of the UK’s shockingly high divorce rate.
One is that so many couples these days enter marriage with ridiculously high expectations, gleaned from soppy films and books – expectations too often dashed by experience of the real thing.
The second, connected to the first, is that many modern- day brides and grooms fail to realise quite what a serious institution marriage is. They seem to believe it’s all about love, when in fact it’s also about the duller but hugely important business of establishing a mutually supportive economic unit.
So if the course of true love sometimes runs a little rough (and show me the couple for whom it never has) one partner or the other is all too quick to turn to Google, looking for a contact number for the likes of Slater Gordon.
Well, of course I may be wrong, but it strikes me that those who have doubts as they prepare to take their vows may be less vulnerable than others to either of those two traps.
Their expectations of marriage are likely to be lower, and therefore less likely to be disappointed, while their misgivings suggest they fully appreciate the seriousness of the step they’re taking.
If my darling wife is still reading this, she’d better stop now. For I confess that I had a doubt or two before I took her to the altar 35 years ago.
My reservations were not about my love, I hasten to say, but about our youth (I was 26, she 22) and the awesome importance of the step we were taking. Gnawing at my mind, too, was my uncertainty about how long such a pretty and vivacious creature would seriously want to stick with a man whose idea of fun, even then, was the Times crossword puzzle and the BBC’s exciting new production, the Antiques Roadshow.
AS long-suffering readers may recall, it had all happened so quickly. My very first words to the future Mrs U, when I clapped eyes on the lovely new barmaid at the Warwick Castle pub, were: ‘A pint of bitter, a packet of cheese and onion crisps and your hand in marriage, please.’ Right there and then, she said yes to all three – and I moved into her flat that weekend.
To this day, I can’t pinpoint the moment over the following weeks when we both stopped regarding my opening speech as a facetious chat-up line, and came to think of it as a solemn undertaking.
Indeed, I’m not even sure that there was such a moment. In a funny sort of way, we both saw it as a done deal from the very instant, 30 seconds into our relationship, when she said Yes.
Anyway, before we knew it, the bridesmaids’ dresses had been ordered, the Randolph Hotel in Oxford had been booked for the reception, the massed ranks of the Scottish relations were heading south in their morning suits and my mate Michael was practising Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor on the church organ, cursing as the keys kept sticking (to this day, I can’t listen to that piece without hearing it punctuated by the F-word).
And there I stood at the rehearsal, thinking: ‘Oh my God, what are we doing? I love her, of course I do. But what if my crusty old relations were right when they warned us t hat we shouldn’t r ush i nto marriage?’
But it was too late to pull out now. The p- p- p- pantechnicon effect was in full operation – and 35 years and four sons later, I’ve never ceased to count myself blessed that it was. Well, hardly ever …
Doubts? Any young couple, no matter how madly in love, would surely be mad not to have a few – and in some cases, it may well be wise to heed them.
All I can say is that I’m jolly glad that I didn’t – and I won’t be ringing Slater Gordon just yet.