Second wives in the UK fight back 

Do first wives have it easy at the expense of the women who follow? Damned as wicked stepmothers or deprived of cash because the husbands’ incomes go on maintenance, second wives in the UK are fighting back. Sarah Duguid reports.

ANYONE who has read Rebecca will know that second wives do not have an easy time of it, even if there are no children involved. And when they are... well, good luck to you, lady. This summer, the profile of second wives will reach a high with the publication of two new novels on the subject: Elizabeth Buchan’s The Second Wife and Jane Moore’s The Second Wives Club. In the view of at least one second wife, though, both books fail to get to the heart of the matter.

Linda Robertson, 41, is the founder of the British Second Wives Club. Worn down by feeling isolated and misunderstood, and after many years of legal action involving her husband’s first wife, she set the club up to provide a place for second wives to go when they feel they have nowhere else to turn.

In her view, Britain’s army of second wives (about one in 10 families are now stepfamilies) have it tough and their lives rarely involve the catalogue of sassy goings-on followed by a happy ending that tend to feature in novels on the subject. “In a divorce, priority is given to the first wife,” says Robertson. “And she wears that priority like a crown on her head.”

Life as a second wife, she says, can be a tedious existence blighted by poverty, interminable fights over children and assets and a feeling of dread that the ex is just never going to go away. What she really wants to see is that crown knocked firmly off the first wife.

The BSWC is only a year old, but it already has nearly 400 paying subscribers, according to Robertson. They can use the club’s website for online chat and advice, go to monthly regional meetings and meet other members. For many of the women, Robertson says, the club has proved a marriage-saving lifeline.

One member, Clare Bamford, met her husband four years ago. At the time he was divorced with two children. “The ex-wife is seen as the victim - always,” she says. “I think second wives are the forgotten people. We are this non-entity. My husband’s ex-wife was constantly complaining to my husband about me and the way I behaved towards her children. She played to every stereotype of the evil stepmother and I became convinced I was this dreadful woman. When his phone rang I was terrified it would be his ex-wife. I would think, what have I done now? It was draining. I was frightened to speak out.”

It’s the kind of story that Robertson hears a lot from members. ”It is almost as if we need a rule book that states how we do second families,” says Robertson. “People want to think of the evil stepmother. Camilla Parker Bowles still has a pretty challenging job of getting the world to face up to the fact that she is married to Charles, Diana is dead and it is time for us all to move on. The dead first wife is always a complete angel who can do no wrong. People want to think stepfamilies can’t work. They can - but it does mean that the couples involved need to be incredibly adult.”

Robertson says she has come across some very un-adult behaviour since starting the club. One ex-wife had told her ex-husband she would continue to withhold access to his children unless he made her a cash payment by the following Tuesday.

Robertson is not sympathetic towards ex-wives who can’t accept their lot. In the course of our chat, I mention a friend who compared the end of her marriage with the death of someone she loved. For some women, I suggest, it is not simply a case of picking yourself up and getting on with your changed circumstances. “I don’t think you can compare divorce to death,” says Robertson. “And it is a widely accepted fact that it takes two years to get over a divorce.”

Bamford met her husband, James, four years ago and a year later moved into the house that he had shared with his ex-wife. She has two children from a previous marriage and her husband has three. “I met my husband’s ex-wife for the first time when she was standing on the driveway screaming: ’Tell that  ***** to get her car off my driveway.’ Since then she has been hell-bent on involving herself in our lives. She moved into the same street as us to be close to her children. She is right on our doorstep and keeps an eye on us. I actually get the most scared if she goes quiet for a couple of weeks. It is as if she is cooking up her next plan. It’s hard living in the former marital home. My two kids feel as though they haven’t got a voice and I have no status in the house. I am just a person who exists to cook and clean and pick up the pieces she has left behind. We have decided to move to Australia to begin a new life but even now his ex-wife is telling my husband she is going to try to split us up before we get there.”

First wives, says Robertson, wield far too much power in a divorce. They can use access to the children as a reward and punishment for their exes and, she says, it is common for members to come to her having been rendered poverty-stricken by a former wife. Clare Shepperd, 37, who has three stepchildren and one daughter of her own, says: “My husband’s ex-wife has a well-paid job. She lives in a three-storey house and yet she pleads poverty. Her income for the past 10 years has been higher than my husband’s and yet he still pays her GBP 4,500 (US$8,000) a year in maintenance. And the kids live with us.”

The BSWC is lobbying to change the way British law “pampers” first wives to the detriment of the second. Robertson says: “The second family often have no money at all. I had a member the other day who said she would just love the chance to have a day out and have her hair cut into a style in a salon and blow-dried. Most of us do not have the money for even the smallest luxury.”

Her website says: “The first wife often claims enough money from a man she no longer lives with to never have to work again. She enjoys new cars and holidays, expensive clothes and restaurants.”

This is not a viewpoint likely to go down well with divorced women - and the statistics don’t seem to bear it out. While some sections of the media revel in the large sums doled out in celebrity divorces, the reality for most divorced women is rather different. Figures from the UK’s Office of National Statistics have highlighted a rather shocking link between divorce and poverty in women of retirement age. Its statistics showed that 40% of divorced women over 65 were poor enough to qualify for income support from the state, compared to 1% of married women and 23% of divorced men in the same age group. Furthermore, the BWSC’s proposal that financial maintenance be paid only as a temporary measure until the ex-wife can find a job and get back on her feet is also unlikely to impress divorced women who had given up their working lives decades previously to raise children and tend the home.

But what cannot be disputed is that second wives often live in uncharted and complex emotional territory, especially where stepchildren are involved. A mother who rages if she deems her children are not being well treated by their stepmother - but then gets jealous if they are being treated too well by her - can appear just plain obtuse to a woman who has no experience of such a situation.

Georgina, 45, met her husband, Paul, 52, four years ago. He had been living apart from the mother of his two children for 18 months. ”I do feel sometimes that I wish I had never married a man with children. I feel resentment of his children. They have his ex-wife stamped all over them. I haven’t had my own children and it is painful to me. I wish I could have a bond with him that is as strong as the one he has with his ex-wife. I can’t have my own children and I therefore don’t want to have someone else’s at the worst stage of their lives, ruining my marriage and my life.”

While Robertson says that many of the members maintain an almost constant link with the BSWC website to help them through the minefield of life in a stepfamily, a final, more upbeat note comes from one mother who did make a success of her new stepfamily. “The first five years with stepchildren is tough,” say Shepperd. “But now I love them because they are a part of my husband. I used to look forward to them going back to their mother’s but now when they say they are going back I get a pang. When I hear her name mentioned, I get a feeling in the pit of my stomach. I feel very maternal towards them. I miss them when they are not around” - Guardian News Service

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