The Miss Behaved First Wife
I loved your instructions on how to be the second wife. I wish my Mom were more like Tiffany’s father’s new very good friend. And my friend Sean goes to the gym every day with his new mother, which is so cool. My own parents have been married, like, since before I was born; can they possibly be Miss Behaved?
Signed,
Longing to be Cool and Different like Everyone else.
Dear Rugged Individual,
You’re right, we neglected an important and up to today, largely ignored Miss Behaved category: the First Wife. In our rush to siphon the fat from our thighs and re-inject it into our lips so we could compete in the trophy wife category, we forgot that there are some very Miss Behaved features to being the first wife.
First wives do not need to be devoted Angels in the House. First wives can and are often, very Miss Behaved, they just need encouragement and the ubiquitous Miss Behaved list of behaviors to amplify in order to be The Totally Miss Behaved Wife.
For instance, first wives do not wear lipstick on Sunday afternoon.
Some sloppy Miss Behaved research, (accomplished by e-mailing a few personal friends), determined that by Sunday afternoon many first wives find themselves still wearing the tee shirt they slept in Saturday night, minus the socks. And, in their rush to take advantage of the weather and harvest the last of the Golden Boy Tomatoes, they forgot to shower.
This is not a problem unless it becomes necessary to accompany the husband on a “quick trip” to Home Depot. Because once deep inside the maze of Home Depot, the previously happy first wife will run into a friend. Not just any friend, the newly divorced friend who is teetering on the cement floor of a home improvement store, Sunday afternoon, dressed in pantyhose, heels and a brand new leather jacket. The first wife feels momentarily bad for being somewhat underdressed, then realizes that the only reason she is here at Home Depot at 4:00 Sunday afternoon is to bless a table saw purchase that will take up far too much room in the garage, spew sawdust over the favorite Miss Behaved car, edge the drum set too close to the door and has dubious long term application. With all that power at her disposal, who needs lipstick?
First wives are not obligated to wear very high heels. They can eschew the heels because it is more important to the husband that the wife can sprint across a flooded parking lot to make the curtain, than look fetchingly helpless and wobble precariously over a storm grate, break the heel and spend the remainder of an expensive evening complaining. Often parking prowess is called into question. After a certain number of years the husband will happily give up the Knock-Me-Down And . . . . heels look for the comfortable sandal look because it decreases the “my feet hurt, slow down and damn I caught my heel and it’s your fault” conversation by 97%. Smart Miss Behaved first wives usually figure out this dynamic early and use it as an excuse to dump the tortuous shoe collection. The longer the marriage, the happier the feet.
Creative nightwear is another Miss Behaved first wife privilege. Second wives, re-invented or not, often invest heavily in Victoria Secret merchandise and own a wardrobe of elegant night wear. Yes, they are constantly chilled, but their new husband, appreciates the outfits so much, and makes unflattering comments about his first and second wives that the currently wife must consider this part of the bedtime show. The second wife even dresses like this when she’s alone as there is nothing-comfortable left in her drawers.
First wives also maintain a creative selection of nightwear; free conference tee shirts bearing 14-inch logos of companies that have since collapsed and a selection of gym socks rejected by the children. Dressed in regulation white footwear and complimentary safety yellow, she is appropriately dressed for the happy shuffle from bedroom to kitchen to retrieve that last container of Ben and Jerry’s.
One of the unknown advantages of being the Miss Behaved first wife (because only those in these long term original relationships know about this, and they aren’t talking) is shared memories that can reduce communication to a quick and efficient short hand. This benefits the wife because she’s busy and it benefits the husband who, by the end of the day, has run out of words.
A Miss Behaved conversation between a long married couple sounds like this:
“You know, just like that thing in college, you know that group.”
“Oh yeah, he looks like the drummer.”
“Didn’t he lose all his hair?”
“You use to have hair like that.”
If the first wife times things correctly, she will experience weight gain and gray hair concurrently with her husband. The goal here is to keep an even pace so that if he is suddenly taken with the idea that you, like Sam’s exclusive friend Susie, should go to the gym, then by extension, so should he. And he is tired. This will free the first wife to continue the single-minded pursuit of the perfect crème brulee.
So, First Wives can be very Miss Behaved. Even if they did marry long before producing a child, and even if they are commitment to one person, First Wives are Miss Behaved as long as they are comfortable and busy pursuing hobbies other than catering to the self-sufficient husband. And that is being Miss Behaved.