How I Found My Mum a Husband

As we approach Valentine’s Day, a story of love for the (modern) ages...

Mum on the day she got engaged to my stepdad

When I tell people I found my mum’s husband, they often raise an eyebrow. Don’t worry, it wasn’t some questionable honey trap, just simple ‘ol Match.com via modem, back in the year 2000. I can remember that evening so vividly, as it was the night before my English literature GCSE and I’d been revising all day without coming up for air. Mum had got back from work in a funk and I was trying to cheer her up. We’d recently converted the workbench in our garage at the back of the garden into an ‘office’ (so makeshift it became known as the goffice forever more) and after hearing her whining that she’d never been single for so long in her life (four months) and that she was destined to be alone (she’d recently broken up with a boyfriend FOURTEEN years her junior, think we can agree she was fine), I suggested we looked for a new mate online. One closer in age and suitability, perhaps. 

Growing up, my mum was in two long term relationships after my dad and both boyfriends while lovely, were chosen explicitly because they would never move in. After the drama and trauma of my dad leaving when my little brother was six weeks old for a woman he met at Oktoberfest (ironically funny only many years in retrospect), mum was understandably wary of getting too entwined. But the problem with basing relationships on not ever going anywhere is that they don’t. And because we inevitably keep moving, the bonds that hold us together end up stretching beyond breaking point. Mr 33 was very much of that ilk too.

This time would be different though, because I was going to choose. The Saffy to my mum’s Eddie (Mum: ‘Go on, have a glass of wine, you’ve worked so hard all day’, Me: ‘I’ve got Dulce et decorum est to critique in circa 12 hours’), I felt I had a far better understanding age 16 of what would be good for her. Turns out I was right.

Scanning through the list of digital hopefuls, I did take her preferences into account. Firstly, bald. I don’t like to think toooo much about the connection between male pattern hairloss and increased libido, but my mum has always been attracted to skullets, so I gave her that one. Secondly, he had to be at least a foot taller than her. Entirely unfair to women over 5’9’’, but the heart wants what the heart wants. Thirdly, he needed to have explored the world. After her years living in Munich, mum had always been drawn to others who had the moxie to emigrate and she very much appreciated linguists (whew, sidestepped that punchline).

On the very first page, I spotted Ian. He was British, but had been raised in Johannesburg, then had lived in Holland, Sweden and Paris and spoke multiple languages. He looked far less dishevelled than her normal type, but he had piercing bright blue eyes and an amazing smile. So I told her to message him.

‘Don’t you think he’s too old?’ (nine months my mum’s senior).
No.

‘Only losers go online to meet a woman.’
I suggest looking in a mirror.

‘What shall I write?’
How about starting with something you have in common?

They met first the first time the following week and within six months they were engaged. Twenty three years later, they’re still going strong.

Obviously, it was kismet. But I do like to think I played at least a logistical part in their love story. There is no way mum would a) have gone online independently or b) have chosen Ian if I hadn’t been there cajoling her to do both. In so many ways, mum and her husband might have seemed incompatible and I’d wager not a single algorithm would ever have paired them. Back then at least, they were politically at different ends of the spectrum and they came from different social backgrounds - my stepdad is the quintessential new world golfer with an accountancy degree, whereas mum was an estuary bohemian who certainly wasn’t going to be keeping to any kind of clubhouse dress code. He liked a pin tidy house, mum was more about the ‘lived in’ vibe. But they just fit, or at least they do after two decades of sanding down each other’s edges.

Mum is Ian’s third wife and at 47, they both had a deep relationship hinterland. It is their perseverance which most inspires me, because their narrative isn’t the high school fairytale, more if at first you don’t succeed. Their dogged belief in the power of partnership, even after the disasters of their previous unions, is to me, the very best of romantic love. The heart conquers all… or at least it does in the end.

As for the biggest love story of my life, it is the one I have with my mum, that defines me. I know it’s Valentine’s and I’ve just got engaged—this is no slight to my fiancé who has all the adoration I have. But nothing will ever compare to the woman who made me in her mould. I know my life is as good as it will ever be right now, as she is in it. Nothing could ever fit in her place; while I’m non-spiritual, it feels like we will always travel together. Obviously, it’s not romantic love, but there can be so much romance to filial love, as there can be in friendship and the infinitely varied forms of deep attachments that we are fortunate to make outside of a coupling. I love how the galentines and palentines messages have diluted the pressure to be with ‘the one’ on February 14th (and yes, I know both are marketing ploys, but you can admire the cultural shifts that capitalism inadvertently instils as a by-product). The hope is that Valentine’s will one day be simply a celebration of love in all its wonderful shapes.

Speaking of those shapes, my family has recently gone through sad days, mourning the loss of mum’s little sister, my auntie Ju. While I’ve never been complacent about my relationship with mum—she’s lived abroad for long enough to keep my brother and me always wanting more of her time—this year does feel different. She turns 70 just after I turn 40, and even though she is vivacious as ever, she talks about making the very most of the good years ahead, of which hopefully, of course, there will be many. No one likes being reminded that loss is a part of life, but my chosen philosophy, stoicism, tells us to think often of the death of those we love, so as to fully glory in the days when we get to hold them tight in our arms. Mum (as I know you’ll be reading this and shortly Whatsapping me to complain that I’ve told thousands of people that you’re about to die/ you offered me wine underage/ you’re a cougar), this year and all years, you are my favourite valentine. Helping you find love is one of the greatest happenstances of my life and I will always be endlessly grateful for your errant parenting, distracting me from my schoolwork to make a memory which burns as clear today as it did those many moons ago ❤️