The Times Magazine 5t’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow – the
most love-filled day of the year!- and so a perfect time to examine
a little-discussed aspect of being in
a happy, long-term relationship. And
this is: absolutely having a “reserved
husbands” list of whom you would
marry if your partner suddenly
dropped dead. To the point of
possibly having that list written down on a
Post-it note that you can look at and feel
comforted by if they’re 20 minutes late
coming back from the post office.
“Looks like he’s been murdered dropping
off my Asos returns,” you would say, sadly.
“That is profoundly non-optimal. Man, I am
down. I have a lot of crying to be getting on
with. So... thank God I’ve planned for the next
bit of my life – with Mitch!”
Now, I get that this might seem a bit... off.
“That’s icy, Cat,” you might say. “Living with
someone whom you profess to adore, but,
every time they cough, thinking, ‘If this
escalates in the next few hours, good thing
I’ve got Jeff on the back burner.’ Who thinks
like that? Who is so calculating?”
And the answer is: pretty much every
married woman I know. And, in a way,
it’s a testament to how much we love our
partners. If you have experienced the true
bliss of real love – if you have often snuggled
down together, on the sofa, to watch Married
at First Sight: Australia, exclaiming, ‘I’m so glad
I’m not out there, having to date, any more!
Oh God! It’s ghastly! It’s so wearying! Thank
you for existing, and being with me!” – then a
logical corollary of that is to be struck dumb
with terror at the idea of your lovely partner,
eg, choking on a cronut tomorrow and
suddenly dying at the age of 51.
This is because there is no information
source on Earth – friends, the internet,
movies, actual statistics – that does not
forcefully remind women that finding a new
partner, in middle age, is basically like a
Where’s Wally? picture, in which “Wally”
is the only vaguely pleasant man on a beach
otherwise full of hatless murderers.
Therefore, it follows that any woman
organised and forward-planning enough to
have, eg, a spare secondhand Hoover in the
basement, in case the primary one packs up,
will also have figured out a Love Back-Up
Plan in her head – in order to minimise her
tragic widowhood. And, logically, she will have
I
CAITLIN MORAN
I have a new husband in reserve
Why every married woman needs a love back-up list
ROBERT WILSON
figured that her best chance of finding another
man she likes enough to marry would be by
looking through the men she already likes
enough to be friends with.
However. There is an observable journey
such thinking goes through. When younger- with the mad, blithe self-confidence of, say,
a 32-year-old – you are convinced there are at
least three married male friends who would,
within six weeks of you being widowed, dump
their wives and finally declare their long-
repressed love for you. All women totally
have this list. And that’s a thought you often
return to, pleasantly, as a combination of
comfort and ego boost.
However, by the time you hit your
mid-forties and your social group is a bit
more, shall we say, “maritally wounded”, you
know no one wants to go through the admin
of a divorce; and even if Simon and Jim did
still adore you from afar, their kids are now
old enough to really lay into you on social
media if you steal their daddy. Plus, as a
middle-aged woman, you’ve really come
to properly value other women, and your
feminism is now strong enough to not want
to screw them over – even if it means you
have no one to drop off your Asos parcels
or sit in the bath with.
This is why all my married female friends
have come to a much more satisfying
arrangement. We have had many cheerful,
practical conversations that conclude with
the sentence, “So, let’s get this clear: if I die
and your husband dies – presumably in the
same car crash – then you can marry my
husband. And vice versa.” Sali has offered
me her Dan, and, in return, I have offered her
my Pete. In the event of me dying but Sali’s
Dan hanging on in there – maybe his airbag
worked, but mine didn’t – Pete is then
bequeathed to the currently single Em, so that,
as a truly exceptional man, he doesn’t “go to
waste”. Lauren’s Graeme has been deemed “a
solid all-rounder – would work with anyone”.
Of course, none of us has actually told
our husbands of these plans. Like booking
holidays and buying the Christmas airbeds in
the summer sales, these are forward-looking
procedures women just sensibly get on with,
without telling the men.
Besides, as an incorrigible romantic,
I think it’s just more magical when love is
“a surprise”. For them, at least. Not us. We
don’t do surprises. n
My friend Sali has
offered me her Dan,
and, in return, I have
offered her my Pete.
It’s only sensible