No, not as in Muslim or Mormon, but rather, wife of a divorced man.
I am told it’s normal to feel one is being compared, and probably not always favorably, to wife #1, as well as to old girlfriends. This has nothing to do with the way Ron talks to me or treats me but rather, to the insecurity that all American women feel about anything relating to our bodies.
Let’s face it: none of us ordinary women are happy with how we look.
To exacerbate this, Ron’s first wife evidently was an expert in the art of lovemaking. Their first encounter, on the day they met, was on the back of a truck, and from the way he describes it, it was pretty spectacular. He also had a three-year love affair with a Japanese law student.*
I on the other hand, perhaps foolishly, have prided myself on being a chaste woman for many, many years. That kept me healthy mentally and physically in some ways, but it’s a tremendous disadvantage in others.
I am also, to put it gently, homely. To put it in completely honest terms, I am probably the ugliest woman in North America! The fact that I’m married continues to surprise me, especially being married to someone who I like, respect and, okay, love as much as I do Ron. The fact that I am ugly has greatly limited my opportunities for the kind of practice that would me a proficient bedmate.
I’ve agonized over this and I’m sick of looking at this ugly face when I comb my hair. So recently, I suggested that we plan on taking a medical vacation in 2011 to Costa Rica, where Ron could get the dental care that he needs and I could get cosmetic surgery. I’d like to be able to take a good picture, or even a decent one. It seems like a small thing to ask when for most human beings, that’s a simple given.
I remember Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis saying that you marry three times: for love, for money and for companionship. I’m keeping the thought that Ron’s first marriage was a practice run and that this one is for love.
I’ll have an easier time believing that when I become more lovable in my own eyes. And whether you want to call it superficial or materialistic, that’ll very likely happen when my own eyes see a face that the camera loves as much as Ron does.