I married Gloria rather later in life than most people get married. She had been married before, and had two girls. Number One Daughter was, in fact, old enough to sign as one of the witnesses to our wedding. I don't think Number Two Daughter ever forgave us for not waiting an extra week to get married, by which time she would have been old enough to sign as the other witness.
I had always expected to be married, but ... well, has the old joke has it, I could have married any woman I pleased. Except that I didn't please any. I had no girlfriends in either high school, or college, or thereafter. Gloria was my first girlfriend. If, indeed, we achieved that kind of relationship status in the brief time before we got married.
So, I knew what I had. I knew that a wife was very important, and important to me, and I had had a considerable amount of time to think about this type of relationship. I was not going to blow it by neglecting to either say, or demonstrate, how much I appreciated my wife.
I told Gloria, pretty much every day of our married life, and sometimes multiple times, that I loved her. I wasn't going to make the mistake of assuming that she knew that I loved her. I may have gone a bit overboard in this. At one point, when Gloria was annoyed with me over something, she shouted at me, "I love you can't be the answer to everything!" "Why not?" I replied.
I held Gloria's hand. A lot. Gloria often told people that I held her hand so much, when we were first married, that she felt that I was afraid she was going to get away. It's quite possible that that is an accurate description of the situation.
On one occasion when we were seeing a medical practitioner who specialized in sexual problems, she noted that most of her patients, who had sexual problems, really had relationship problems, and that it was obvious that that was not our situation. We asked why she could be so sure of this fact. She said, "You're holding hands. You hold hands pretty much constantly the whole time you are here in the office. Obviously, your relationship is not the problem."
I also opened doors for Gloria. I tried, as far as possible, to open doors for Gloria whenever I was with her. I particularly opened car doors for Gloria. When we were getting into the car, I would open the car door for her, ensure that Gloria was seated first, and close the door behind her. On one occasion, out to dinner with friends, we were getting into the backseat of their car, and I opened the door for Gloria, and ushered her into the seat, and then closed the door behind her. The husband, driving the car, pulled away, assuming that I had gotten in myself.
When speaking with Gloria, when I said that I loved her, she would sometimes ask, "But *why* do you love me?" I always tried to detail the reasons that I loved her: not simply because she was wonderful, but because she was intelligent, she was knowledgeable, she was kind, she was gracious, and quite a number of other specifics. Sometimes I would simply answer because I choose to love you. But I didn't do that very often. In a sense, I was reminding myself of why I loved Gloria, and reminding myself to be grateful for these many wonderful characteristics.
Many bereaved widowers experience regret and guilt. My biggest regret is that I never learned to cook broad beans properly. Gloria loved broad beans, although I suspect that she loved broad beans not necessarily for the consumption of the beans themselves, because, as I say, I cooked them wrong for thirty years. I suspect that she loved broad beans more because her grandfather always had broad beans in his garden. However, as noted, an awful lot of guys feel regret and guilt over their treatments of their wife. In one of the groups that I was a part of, one grieving widower was extremely regretful, and felt extremely guilty, about the fact that he made jokes about his wife, and never realized how much she did for him. Now that he was responsible for cleaning the house, doing his own laundry, and cooking all his own meals, he realized what he had lost. As the old song says, you don't know what you got 'til it's gone. I tried to remind myself, all the time, of what I had. And I tried to let Gloria know, both by speech, and by action, that I did appreciate and love her. I have no regrets on that score.
(In regard to jokes about wives, I never participated. One of my major annoyances with, particularly American, preachers is their all-too-frequent recourse to jokes about their wives. Since Gloria's death, jokes about "the little woman" or "she-who-must-be-obeyed" [and, yes, I *have* read the Rider Haggard book] I find so offensive that it's difficult to have coffee with any group of guys.)
(A somewhat related thought: one of the accolades that Gloria gave me was that I was an honourary woman--and man enough to consider that a compliment.)
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Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html
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