First came love but it was with horsey

Was it a surprise it ended in divorcey?

I like marriage. I really do. So much so that I’ve done it three times already. Practice makes perfect!

However we have to consider that horses are expensive and time consuming and not everyone can relate to the sacrifices horsemen make in order to be involved in horses and especially to own one.

My first marriage was to a non-horseman. In fact, he was pretty much a non-animalman as well. He didn’t hate dogs and cats, he just didn’t live for animals, nor did he understand them. His mother was the same, having never had a pet in their home and my animals knew it. In fact, they had conspired deciding that for this she should be punished. The first time she visited my house my little mutt dog walked over to her and then unceremoniously lifted his leg to pee on hers. A lot.

Hell of a way to greet the new mother-in-law to your home, eh? Oddly it was a one time occurrence which he’d never done before, or since.

Of course I pushed things to the edge in the marriage due to my constant need to save things like animals lost or in distress. This proved trying to the marriage.

I remember this incident when I had rescued an injured seagull. To feed it I ended up having to put it in the bathtub. It didn’t want to eat table scraps but when I put it in the bathtub to eat the swimming goldfish I’d bought it readily began to eat them. It continued to eat until my husband entered the bathroom to take (or leave as it were) a pee. The seagull ceased eating goldfish and instead dove it’s clap snapping beak at his groinial area looking for………. Uhm bigger fish.

When that same seagull infected our bathroom with buggies, he still didn’t go ballistic but he instead told his friends of my misadventures. They found me odd and amusing but still they never “got it”.

However when it came to horses, that was pretty much the drawing line. Even though I’d had the horse way before I had ever met him he just couldn’t see spending all that time and all that money to have a horse. The day eventually came when he commanded “It’s either me or the horse”.

I was nice. I didn’t let the door smack him in the ass after he packed his crap and left. He was gone, but I had that horse another 10 years until the horse passed away at the ripe old age of 32.

The horse you see was a better horse than the husband was a husband, despite his tolerance for weenie eating seagulls in the tub.

I figured I’d do the next marriage better and find someone who was into horses. And I did. Unfortunately he was also into alcohol though most of the time it was the alcohol which was into him. At times, gallons of it.

I put up with a lot of crap in order to live the horse life. It didn’t work and that spouse too had to go.

And I still had that same horse.

Now it’s marriage number three, and even ole Rocket couldn’t hang on and live long enough for that. The bright side is, however, that this marriage just might stick. Why?

He doesn’t mind the horse. He doesn’t feel threatened by it. He loves all the pets and they are his family. He’d often tease me when I’d ask why he fell in love with me and he’ll answer “big boobs and pets”.

I can live with that.

To his credit he never questions how much I spend, either in time or money. He doesn’t understand a thing about riding but he’s listened to my vitriol so often that he parrots it well, sounding as good as any horse trainer alive.

He’ll tease me when he hears me on the phone kvetching to a friend and I’ll hear him mumbling “Battered Boarders Syndrome” as he makes his way through the house. I’ll hear him talking to himself about “harmonious development of the horse and rider”. It never fails to amuse both me and my friends.

On a trip to Las Vegas he even agreed to go on a trail ride. He’s a big guy so when the horse saw who was about to ride him you could just see the horse’s thought cloud “You just have to be kidding me, right?”

That was the first and last time my husband would ride a horse. And as a friend puts it “horses around the world breathe a collective ‘whew’”. So there will never be a romantic trail ride at sunset on the beach on one hand, but there will also never be the ultimatum “it’s either me or the horse”. (Maybe he knows who’ll win?)

It’s hard to find the perfect combination in a spouse who allows you to be you and who doesn’t have the need to control or dictate. I’m very lucky.

How lucky are you? I’d love to hear your stories.