Oh! for a dependent wife

Press, 11 October 1986, Page 14

Oh! for a dependent wife

Rosaleen M c Carroll

“John and I are following the good old American tradition of being separated and maybe someday divorced,” wrote my friend Kristin, in a letter to me six months after I had left the United States. She was alluding to the break-up of her 12-year-old marriage to a professor of literature.

“All of the latest soap opera came out when we got back from England. He was still very tense and jumped every time I touched him.

“I finally asked him what was the matter and after a week of talking (literally) it came out that he wasn’t happy being married to me, and he has a girlfriend who finishes her masters degree this spring. “He says I have grown too dependent on him, and am not actively seek-

ing a job, and on and on. He wants some-one toughminded and independent like I used to be in the good old days, and like she is now. She is the same age as I was when we got married. That’s how far back he wanted to go.

“From his reports she is extremely extroverted and argumentative, and while not horribly physically attractive has “IT.”

“The silly thing though, is that he and I do share tastes in people and I know I would like her. She is not so sure about me though. “They are moving in together this spring and insanely enough, he would like me to hang around and be available if it doesn’t work out. Fat chance!” And here Kristin showed her true colours

which had always escaped that “independent” husband of hers. “I, little Kristin Gabrielson (maiden name) — as I have gone back to — have a wonderful boyfriend myself. “He is a Czech architect who skis, plays squash incessantly, hikes, makes wonderful love, likes my kids, and needs me as much as I need him. “We are both very aware the rather intense feelings we have for each other might be the rebound effect so we are not making any stable plans just yet.” I knew Kristin had married her George when she sent me their wedding photo — both wearing flowers in their hair. She is now Kristin GabrielsonMissevich, and he is George Missevich-Gabriel-

son. When we visited them three years later, Kristin was living in the family home with George, her two boys, and a dog called Barclay. George is the model of a zany pofessor, very funny and like Kristin, very tolerant. He obviously doesn’t see himself as a father figure to her two young boys, which works well because their own father misses them dreadfully. Kristin is as warm and funny as ever and good humouredly copes with a teaching job, her two boys, George, George's two grown children and their girlfriends, and the three motherless teenage girls next door, all of whom treat her place as home. Eventually talk * got round to her “ex.” Apparntly all was not well in the love nest and they had decided to live apart, but in the peculiarly American way, they were still dating. The ex himself, was a frequent visitor. Kristin often came home and found him sitting on her doorstep. In fact, that very day he (the ex) had bought George a bottle of cherry brandy because he was so grateful to him for letting him visit.

It was the day before Thanksgiving when American families travel from near and far to be together for a Thanksgiving celebration.

Kristin had arranged a lavish dinner for her extended familyh, and she had invited her ex and his girlfriend. He was dead keen, but his girlfriend wasn’t so sure.

As I said to Kristin ... “The poor girl is obviously unnerved by your unfailing good humour and your endless goodwill towards her.”

Kristin just laughed and said, “I hope so.”

Some men seriously underestimate their dependent wives.