Book Notes: Man and Wife

From Man and Wife by Tony Parsons:

- " But how did you and Dad do it, Mum? How do you love someone for a lifetime? How do you make a marriage work for all that time?"

My mum didn't even have to think about it.

" You have to keep falling in love," she said. " You just have to keep falling in love with the same person."

- " Does it change? As the years go by, I mean. Should I expect my marriage to be something different to what it was at the start?"

My mother smiled.

" It changes all the time, it never stops changing. When you're young you say - I love you because I need you. When you're old it's - I need you because I love you. Big difference. and I'm not saying that one is better than the other, although the second one tends to last a bit longer. But you never stop loving each other, Harry. Not if it's real. " She took my hands. " Look, Harry. Talk to her if you want to. Talk to Cyd. Tell her what's been happening. Talk to your wife if you think it will help. "

"But I don't know if I can. See, I want her to be proud of me, Mum. The way you were proud of Dad." I squeezed her hands. "And i want you to be proud of me too."

" I'm proud of you already," said my mum.

- That's how fragile all this is, as gossamer thin as a spider's web, as intricate and fragile as that, meticulously built but easily torn apart by a few cruel, casual blows. My parents' marriage looked like it was made of sterner stuff. My mum and dad genuinely believed that they couldn't be happy with someone else. And I knew that wasn't true for me. I could have been happy with Kazumi. Just as Kazumi could find the human bond we all seek with some other man. And just as Cyd could have found someone else to love her. That didn't make what I had with my wife feel like nothing. In some ways the knowledge that either of us could survive without the other made what we had seem even more precious. We stayed together because we chose to stay together.

In a world full of choices, we chose each other.