Marriage Diaries: I'm worried my wife's newly divorced friend is leading her astray
'I'm just going out with Janet for a few drinks.' It's a sentence I'm hearing a lot from my wife, recently.
The Janet in question is her recently divorced best mate, whose split from her husband has swiftly been followed by a period of sustained socialising in which my wife has become her wing-woman.
I've always really liked Janet. She's extremely warm and, well, lots of fun. And the fact that she's my wife's oldest friend means I'm not at all surprised that she wants to hang out with her and vice versa.
Janet has decided to turn the negative of her divorce into a big positive and embrace the sudden lack of someone waiting for her at home by going out to meet whoever might be waiting for her elsewhere.
Don't let that paint the wrong kind of picture, either, it's not like Janet's on some horny, hell-raising bender, she has her kids every other week and with her husband moving out of the house they shared, she's just making the most of the opportunity and lack of responsibility on her free weekends.
However, she has stolen my wife, and we do have school-age kids, which leads to plenty of weekend responsibilities, and some of the escapades that Janet gets her involved in are starting to impact my life.
Most of these escapades can usually be prefixed with the word ' boozy '. From brunches to lunches, even a picnic in the park, a lot has recently turned 'boozy', and I wouldn't be surprised if my wife called me next week to tell me that the museum visit they have planned has turned a bit 'boozy'.
Last weekend, after a Friday night out with Janet, she was still too hungover the next day to go to a birthday party on Saturday afternoon, leaving me to go it alone with a gaggle of primary school parents, only 32 per cent of whom we like.
Usually, we would look out for one another at such events, knowing full well who the 68 per cent are and realising that if one of us is engaged in conversation with one of them for more than five minutes that we'll need rescuing. There have been three separate instances like this since Janet, not that I'm keeping count.
It doesn't always involve alcohol. Sometimes it's just that she has plans with Janet at the weekend that trump our plans because Janet 'needs her right now,' and I'm not sure what the expiration date on 'right now' is for recently divorced best friends.
Maybe I shouldn't be surprised that my wife is enjoying the opportunity to let her hair down after the last few years with me, where we had settled into an, admittedly, slightly less exciting daily routine that involves work, dinner and an evening in front of The Traitors.
So, maybe every marriage needs a Janet, at some point, to shake things up. Although there's now talk of a girls' holiday, which is not happening, given the perilous state of our finances at the moment and the fact that we can't even afford a family holiday ourselves.
So, I'm frantically searching my database of eligible fellas in the hope that I can set Janet up with one of them and things might start to calm down a bit. Unfortunately, most of my mates are now either married or golfers, and I know Janet well enough to know she's allergic to golfers.
However, there is a very good friend of mine who has been a confirmed bachelor for years, and he could be the Janet antidote that I have been searching for.
They'd be perfect for one another. Janet would get a new partner in crime. I'd get my wife back, everyone wins.
White Lotus instead.
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