The Spaciousness of Thought

It came to me as I lay for hours sleeping and half-sleeping through the night. 

Makes me remember Apollinaire' Alcools and in particular his poem Chantre

Et l’unique cordeau des trompettes marines

—the shortest poem in the French language

One of my thoughts, like a title, was "The Equivalence of Wives".

This is what I wrote in notebook:

Perpetual Lab has reached its ultimate function, in the form of "Diary" using the wide expanses of Blogger to to ink wide thoughts

It's a literary whiteboard, infinitely wipeable. Upstaging this notebook which becomes a jotter for shopping lists when nothing else is at hand

Of which more later as in my notebook. I'm taking a breather before removing the front door handles to take to the excellent locksmith B. Hatt.

Yes,I got them from Hatt's grandson for £50 and he gave me a lift back in his big van. Of course I could have walked.

Sweet lovemaking earlier after we'd drunk our tea and had enough of the crossword. Except for K, my wives have been in a sense random choices. Wrong expression. there was no succession of relationships that fizzled out or ended in "heartbreak". I'm not the heartbreak type.

 Pondering the matter I decide that what I mean by equivalence is the way one might adjust to the sexual  relationship,. If one partner wants sex and the other doesn't

Looking at it from a transactional point of view, the problem top be resolved is how you are going to put up with one another. As in my earlier post, we can leave out "Love" from the equation.

Putting it simplistically, the two of you have to find a way to share one another's lives. Let's see the scope: 

• each of you have your own life, with responsibilities, prejudices, likes and dislikes daily routine, timetable and so on
• bad habits
• areas in which you are dependable and those at which you are hopeless
• skills ditto

Then there is the sexual relationship

It's the sole reason that the institution of marriage, as translated into every human culture on earth. It can of course be hijacked for the loopholes it enables: immigration, avoidance of tax.

People may get married for the comforts of shared living, where it's agreed not to have sex. I have a niece, Janet Unwin, an art teacher, who for years lived with a writer whose books were all about football. Both were celibate. Childhood abuse can generate lifelong repulsion. Especially, I'd guess, where it is repressed and never let go of through sessions with a therapist.

I believe my first wife J, Janet's older sister, may have suffered worse. She suffered greatly in her life and committed suicide at 47 years old. She was not short of friends who gave her loving support.