Where are your socks darling?
I’m waiting for him to put that as the first question.
Is your wife bossy? Yes, yes, yes.
Are we on now? Oh!
(We were always on.)
(Antony, is there a secret to a good marriage?)
Yes, I make the coffee for her in the morning
and she makes the tea for me at night.
I think somebody said at some point
getting married will change your life.
That was in a kind of admonishing kind of way.
And I remember saying, well I hope it will.
And it has. And it’s continually evolving.
I think we’re finding it more exciting the older we get.
You know, we’re a bit more frail and incompetent about things
but we don’t seem to mind that... at least I don’t.
I’d recommend it to anyone.
It’s probably because we’ve lost our marbles.
I think the first thing that I was grateful for was that
somebody wanted to marry me.
Somebody thought I was marriage material.
I’m married to a man that has an incredible sense of humour.
And that has helped me to be lighter.
I was quite a quiet, serious person before I met him.
The first time I met Antony I felt like I’d found
myself in him.
That there was something that felt so at home.
This was the first person that I felt I could be completely who I am
and be accepted for that.
So for me that has been the biggest lesson
and the biggest gift that I’ve received...
is somebody who accepts me completely for who I am.
I hear people say that you need to know yourself
in order to bring that into a marriage.
And I’m sure that’s true.
To me it feels slightly different...
it’s more the willingness to find ourselves in the marriage.
That feels a little bit more forgiving and a bit more allowing.
Let this relationship change me
in whatever way becomes natural
in the interaction between us.
Can I become such an integral part of this world
that it and me are one thing?
That we’re just willing to allow this flow
to become us.
That’s one of the wonderful things about having a companion
is that you see the world through their eyes.
It kind of broadens your vision.
I can share the things that excite me.
And I can share the things that excite her.
And sometimes it’s difficult to find that excitement.
And we share that as well.
By the same token, you see when they’re suffering
or when they’re having a hard time.
That’s part of seeing it through their eyes.
So immediately there’s a sense of reaching out...
or putting a ladder down into a hole where they’ve climbed
so that they can climb out.
Or one can climb in and dance down there
and say the darkness is quite fun.
Holes and ladders... we play holes and ladders all the time.
Our relationship is not different to others.
Sometimes we have the wind behind us and we sail on.
And other times we tack back and forwards across the choppy waters
and we feel we’re going to drown.
We make mistakes all the time
and getting stuck is sometimes part of the flow.
And those are often the times that teach us the most...
when I’m really in an uncomfortable place,
I’ve messed up, I’ve disregarded somebody,
I’ve turned away from intimacy in some way...
And then to say ‘I’m sorry’
or can I make you a cup of coffee, or let’s go for a walk.
Whatever it is... to just see if it’s possible
to move past that point together.
The tolerance comes from
knowing that that person is lovable
even when you want to kill them.
The older you get, the more tolerance you have to learn
because your own tolerance gets less,
your own patience gets less.
So the little things that come up in marriages and relationships like
‘Don’t wear your best pants to paint in’...
One doesn’t hold onto stuff.
You let it go very quickly.
I’ve seen what happens when I don’t do it,
when I let it fester.
When I take it inward and don’t let it out.
I’ve also seen what happens when I let it out
without reflection before hand.
I think reflection, for any human being, is vital.
And I think that is something that people struggle with now
because one is bombarded so much
that you don’t stop enough to reflect on your life
and what you can change, or what doesn’t feel right.
And then make that effort.
And I think the fact that we’re working on that daily,
that’s the fruit of it.
It does happen that strangers come up to us sometimes and say,
‘We were walking behind you, and that’s what I wish for myself’.
And all I can say is I wish that for you too.
I’m just grateful that I have a companion in this life.
I realise that, for many people, it’s not something they have.
‘Lucky’ is one of the many words to put it...
lucky, grateful, infuriating,
just a breath of fresh air.
I think the words just flood me.
And that’s what feels real about it.
If it was a romantic, picture postcard sunset over the sea kind of life...
that sounds terribly boring to me.
If you ask me would I like to change anything now,
the answer is no.
I would just like to go into this
with as much enthusiasm as I can figure out
so that when I die,
not if, when I die,
I’m happy to feel that I have led a full life
and had great friendship along the way.
(Margie, would you be OK if something happened?)
What? To him?
I would miss him terribly.
But I feel that I have enough of an internal life
that has been fed by my love for him
and his love for me, that will sustain me.
I don’t even know what it means to say this is destiny,
this is the answer to my life.
It’s the life I have... and she’s my life.
If that isn’t too romantically put.