I don’t mention my wife as much as I should in this column, and never by name, since she’d rather I didn’t. I presume this is for privacy reasons, rather than her continued attempts to refute our marriage. She and my son both also have recognisable names and live in my house, so I thought better of giving people more search terms by which they could locate our vast, ill-secured Hackney mansion.
I think this was a smart and prudent choice, but it has led to a few difficulties. For one thing, constantly referring to ‘my wife’, ‘her’, ‘my son’, ‘the boy’ sometimes makes me sound intolerably vague, or like a man on the internet who calls women ‘females’.
I could just decide on a fake name that didn’t resemble her own – nor anyone else we know, since that, too, would be weird. I toyed with this, it was even worse; divulging heartfelt tales of our family struggles seemed odd when I was referring to her as Eusébio or Zangief.
I also worry that not naming her has the nagging scent of dehumanisation, as if I’m doing all in my power to reduce my wife to a supporting part, casting her as an extra whose only role is to reflect back on me, Séamas, the sole protagonist of reality. All those considerations are secondary to the fact my wife has been so incredible I feel a deep shame for ever writing about anything else.
There are few tropes of parenting more ubiquitous than a new dad unreeling schmaltzy tributes to the power of motherhood he’s just now witnessed up close. I don’t think it’s speaking out of turn to say these efforts are usually heartfelt, often touching and nearly always completely unreadable.
I’m not averse to sentiment, or even the odd gush. I just find it hard to count all the ways in which she has struck me dumb with quiet awe, or to find a new way of saying this to people in public without sounding as if I’m in a cult.
The dawning of a new year makes us reflect on the things for which we are grateful, and there’s nothing my son and I are more privileged to have in our lives than her. I thank my lucky stars that the girl I fell in love with due to our shared love of 90s house music, Scandinavian crime dramas and garlic cheese fries from Aprile’s on Richmond Street, also turned out to be so warm, compassionate and strong.
She has a much harder role than I do, and does even those small things I’m capable of, much better than I can. It’s astonishing she doesn’t complain about this all the time since, to be fair, she doesn’t mind complaining about most things. If I have one resolution for 2019, it’s to make her know this better, and in more ways. By 2020, I may even stop implying she’s having an affair with her personal trainer. Baby steps, and all that.
Follow Séamas on Twitter @shockproofbeats
