The Henry VIII guide: How to get rid of 5 Wives

I received a message last week from my sister, who was quite hysterical as she'd heard that our father was leaving his wife, who is in a nursing home, and had proposed to another woman he'd been having an affair with, using his wife's ring. 

She had found this out after calling our stepmother ( our father's wife), who said he'd been having an affair for a while, and that she needed a lawyer and wanted her ring back.

This is all quite unthinkable for most people, and sound more like a plot from Days of our Lives or some other horrendous soap opera, than real life. Then you take into consideration that our father's current wife is his 5th, and that the ring in question, which he had allegedly proposed to someone else with, was already recycled- having been given to my mother as an anniversary gift (which she subsequently suggested he insert rectally, so to speak, in their divorce). 

In an update to the story, it turns out the current wife had a stroke last week, and is having a lot of delusions, as a result of that and her existent dementia, of which this story is just one. 

But where's the fun in reality? What's more pertinent is that we all found this to be a credible reality, and believed it to be actually happening, as opposed to just being a figment of a decaying, dementia patient's mind. 

About to turn 31, I am beginning to see a smattering of divorces among my friends. At the time they married they were very much in love, and im sure they hoped for and envisioned a lasting future together. These days we think very little of someone having been divorced, and in some ways it's almost endearing: isn't it nice for someone to have been so passionately devoted, even if naively, to want to ignore any flaws in another person and devote themselves to each other.  As humans we make these mistakes, but at some point it's normal to expect that people learn from them and grow or change. 

I was talking to some women at a party recently, who were in their early 50s. There was also a rather suave guy there, pushing 60, but looking great in a suit, a big smile for everyone, and who seemed intelligent and friendly, not arrogant to talk to. The women were single, as he evidently also was, but none of them seemed intersted in  him, despite him having what seemed to me to be some attractive qualities. I asked them why they weren't interested in him, and their response was  simply "He's been divorced TWICE!". 

Interested, I pursued the matter further, and the comments were along the lines of, "doesn't he learn!?" and "there must be something wrong with him!". I didn't tell them about my father, as I've had that awkward shuffling and avoidance of conversation too many times before.

As one of my brothers once pointed out, a 6th wife would make our father like King Henry VIII, although he hadn't rid himself of any by means of beheading. (Not that I'd be sure it had never crossed his mind. )

In one sense, it's actually quite impressive that he has convinced that many people to marry him. As my mother said- he was very romantic when dating, very convincing that he'd been misunderstood by his previous [3 at that stage] wives, and just wanted someone to love.  As it turned out he just wanted someone to love HIM (the concept of loving someone else is irrelevant to a pathological narcissist- everyone loves them in their mind) without question, even if he kicks your children or punches you in the face.

Growing up with this reality gives you a very warped view of relationships, marriage and love. Where everyone who "loves" you, will manipulate, humiliate and abuse you. 

It's interesting when you're also painted as guilty by association- I can't tell you how many boyfriends' parents I've met who clearly disapprove of the family I come from, and push for them to dissociate from me. A child has no choice what family yet are born into, or grow up in.

So what has all of this taught me? I can't tell anyone what is the right thing to do, but I can talk for days about what NOT to do. 

 I approach relationships very cautiously- too cautiously- and have lost several partners through not giving up enough of myself fast enough, but having witnessed such intense manipulation and deception, and the abuse that ensued, trust is not something I develop easily. I would feel safer walking naked through the middle of Kabul holding a placard stating "fuck Allah" than I would to tell a partner I loved them. Even writing is in conceptual form gives me a feeling of tightening in the chest- the beginning of a panic attack. 

I have created a self- fulfilling prophecies: if I reveal too much of my past, be myself, or don't do what they would want, they will reject me. So I hold back to extremes, and they wind up leaving anyway, probably through frustration as much as impatience. Thus reinforcing the belief that no one will ever understand my situation or want to be with me.  Do I recognise my own role in these situations, and kick myself every time it happens? More than you could possbily imagine. 

Shaken out of bliss

I'm Sitting in the Garden bar in Zadar- this place is one of the nicest places I've ever been in. Absolutely magical- situated on the peninsula Which juts out into the adriatic, housing the town which has existed for 3000 years, and the atop of the ancient town walls. You look across the inlet to the mainland, watching the night time reflections dance on the water. 

I ordered a vanilla mojito- possibly the best cocktail I've ever had. The lounges are so comfortable I sunk back, listening to the amazing lounge beats and drifting into deep, dreamy relaxation. 

Then there was an electrical fault- and the music and lights went off, leaving the harsh cackling of the group of Spanish tourists nearby to scrape into your psyche, and completely jolting you out of that dream like state.

 Like a warm shower, easing all your aches  after a hard week, beginning to feel like maybe you'll morph into a human being again- then suddenly the water going cold - leaving you feeling shocked and ruining all that was.

From something which seemed so beautiful, like nothing you'd ever imagined possible, to a harsh reality which was perhaps thinly veiled in partly the moment, but largely only existing in your imagination. 

It seems the perfect metaphor for my life recently.

Black dog tours

When you go to another town, city or country, you can experience many different things- see new sights; better weather, or just different if that's what you're after; taste different foods and meet different people.

The one thing which is quite inescapable is what rattles around in your own brain. Travel can be fantastic for opening new parts of your mind or distracting you for a while, but the demons of doubt and self loathing lurk close behind, like a shadow growing longer in the day and waiting to consume all at night fall.

The black dog is not stopped at quarantine or customs, nor is it required its own passport, but travels freely right along side you, perhaps imperceptibly at first. Then one day the delirium of a new holiday wears off, and jet lag creeps up, weighing you to the spot until you roll over in the middle of the night and it's staring back at you. Big black eyes which sear into your core, making it impossible to deny that all you had been trying to pretend you weren't is still true.

For me, it's right beside me in the mirror most of all, saying that you can't hide what you are- no make up, change of clothes or different surroundings will hide what a freak you are. I am disgusted with you, and everyone else is too.

Every time you manage to forget about it, When y walk down the street, there are so many eyes- laughing, mocking, taunting eyes, which remind you of this- you are a fucking weirdo freak who will never be acceptable. Other people are just a reminder of what you're not- they may be beautiful, comfortable, happy, laughing, with fulfilling lives. You walk past them, empty, as though performing a role, although badly, and they mock your failure at trying to be one of them.

Away from work, home and it's usual distractions, the banale routine of normality, it is only more apparent, the hollowness of it all. The shame of loneliness you daren't confess for fear of further mocking, and the paralysing ironic inability to talk to people and remedy the situation.

And so I drift, alone, through country after country searching for a soul I will likely never have.