Like many middle-aged comfortably married men, I have become a lazy shadow of my former self.
The invite drops into my inbox. “Dinner with Mike and Ilse. Accept Decline Maybe.” I accept, knowing that whatever date my wife has chosen for us to meet our friends, I’ll be free. This is how my social life is arranged, via delegation. Household admin is conducted the same way. I get diary notifications telling me the cleaner is scheduled, or someone is coming to paint the hallway.
I’m not alone. I’ve seen many older male relatives struggle with the very basics when their relationships break down. Unless they find someone else, they become lonely ghosts drifting through life unattached and unable to remember their children’s birthdays or their own waist size, struggling even to buy a nutritionally balanced basket of food.
I know my wife, Stephanie, would rather I was more proactive in many aspects of our relationship, such as arranging for a plumber to fix the dripping taps in the bathroom. After two years of asking me to arrange to have our building regulations passed off by the council, she gave up and did it herself.While society is prone to mock these older men in whom romantic hope springs eternal, they may just be following survival instincts.
Robin Dunbar, professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Oxford, explains: “Probably the commonest club for married men is the club of the husbands of wives’ girlfriends. They don’t choose to go out for a regular beer together but are thrust into the situation.
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