When wives get together...

...inevitably, if they chat long enough, that is, one or another (and usually, it's the same one or another) will launch into some lilting, lingering, little story about her husband's sweet gesture (the sweetness of which often has no comparison). It might be an act of selflessness, or a strikingly thoughtful deed, or even something as simple and as concrete as a gift, for no reason at all: a trinket or a handbag or the fashionista's must-have du jour. Somehow, the telling of this tale is like a way of capturing a bit of living, breathing proof of true love in their bare hands, for all to see. It vibrates, perhaps struggling to be set free and yet trapped, caught, caged. Aha. I have you now. Look! I have it.

And the other wives will coo and twitter with marvelling, perhaps even envious tones. For a moment, one or another (and usually, it's the same one or another) will feel, though she may not own it, the finest thread of discontent working it's way into her emotional needle's eye. How wonderful. You're so lucky. That's so sweet. X would never. I can't even imagine. Wow.

It is to the latter one or another that I write, though I am certain, that deep down inside, she already knows it. This bit of knowledge that is, in fact, yet another length of thread, waiting to be taken up for stitching. She knows it takes a certain kind of person to do a certain kind of thing. And were she to imagine, even for a moment, her particular love doing this particular thing, she would soon recognise he would no longer be the person who does all the other things that she cherishes, values and appreciates, in fact loves - that is, if she is fortunate enough to see those things with her own eyes.

Perhaps this is just one item on the long list of amusing discoveries made aboutmarriage. That the person loved cannot always love one in the way one, every now and then (but not always) wants to be loved. And paradoxically, the person who would love her in precisely that way she sometimes (but not always) might want to be loved, is for the most part, someone she never would have fallen in love with in the first place.