100 The Australian Women’s Weekly | MAY 2019
Relationships
A
hostile grown-up children and a
bewildered younger one. For me, the
good middle-class girl who obeyed all the
rules in the past, it was madness, a coup de foudre;
for my new husband, a handsome, funny, streetwise
photographer, who’d played the field most of his life,
it was a startling commitment, a sea-change.
Dave and I met as successful professionals on a
big newspaper, and together, with my son Doug,
we created a home life in a tumbledown rural
paradise. We had 18 years of golden times; laugher-
filled, hectic, sustained by that wonderful sense of
being on the same side, supporting and adoring each
other. Dave believed in me more than I believed in
myself; a novel experience for me. He unconditionally
had my back.
Never a natural parent, he respected that my
priority was Doug and we forged a tolerant,
outdoorsy, team lifestyle, giving each other space and
maintaining our own friends. I made no attempt to
shoehorn him into a father role. There was a surfeit of
freedom, fun, walking holidays, and as much sport as
Doug and I could persuade him to attempt.
The music stopped, with devastating abruptness, in- I was 52, fitter and more active than I’d been at
32, with a big job at the The Times newspaper and
When British journalist Melanie
Reid married, she knew her
outgoing husband wasn’t the
nurturing type, so when a horse-
riding accident left her disabled, she
gave him the chance to leave. What
has happened since shows how
precious true love really is ...
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