My friends were all busy buying flats and pouring pounds into renovations, while my wife managed to fritter away every bit of our savings chasing the elusive idea of increasing our wealth.
Back then, it seemed as if everyone else had found themselves a bright and lovely wife, while I ended up with a foolish one.
She would boast to anyone whod listen, saying that once the wedding was over, buying a flat would be straightforward. After all, the wedding guests had handed us money, and our families, she claimed, would help us out as well. In reality, however, her parents made it quite clear: since she had insisted on marrying an unremarkable estate agent at twenty, and one with no degree, we’d simply have to make do and muddle through our housing problem. They actually laughed aloud at our situation, and I had no choice but to bring my wife to live with my own parents. Family shenanigans, if you will.
My brother was already living there with his pregnant girlfriend, and things were cramped. My parents hinted, with that English subtlety, that it would be jolly considerate if we found somewhere elseat least a small flat to rent. But Id made up my mind to save as much as possible, planning to eventually take out a mortgage and buy a house when the time was right. My wife knew of these plans and claimed she longed to move out herself. And yet, what did she do? She invested our savings in shares.
For what purpose? In the hope of multiplying our nest egg.
My mother nearly fainted when I broke the news. My own heart ached, seeing as the value of our shares was tumbling, and selling them would take time. So, our choices were to cut our losses or risk waiting and hoping for a surge that might never come. Thats where things stood: all my mates had settled families and spacious flats, but we had shares!
My wife cried endlessly, regretting that she’d been taken in. Shed even paid those people who had promised to teach her about wise investing. As for me, divorce was becoming an ever-looming thought. My love simply doesnt seem strong enough to push past all this, not with the image of the money Id worked and saved for years drifting away like dust in the wind.
If Im honest, perhaps our marriage was troubled from the very first, and all of this only confirms that Ive been marking time through a never-ending run of ill fortune, all because I wed a daft girl.
