Lindsay Woods: 'My husband is in a committed relationship with another man. To be specific, it is rather several men'

My husband is in a committed relationship with another man. To be specific, it is rather several men.

A team if you will. You may actually be familiar with some of their names or heard others whisper them in revered or concerned tones, “Sexton… O’Mahony… Furlong… Earls… Aki…”

You get the gist. Unless you have been co-habiting with some toads beneath a moss coated rock, you will be aware that we are knee deep in the 2019 World Cup. As a result, the atmosphere in my house swings erratically between feverish to one of despair to, “If you break another thing in this living room with your leaping about the place, I’ll make you watch the remainder in the pub!”

Because that, for my husband, is the greatest punishment of all. It would strike cold fear in his heart that firstly, the pub in question may not screen the match and, secondly, that he would be surrounded by individuals either totally indifferent or worse… talkers.

The week leading up to the game against Scotland he was a veritable wreck.

He was restless, distracted and quite frankly, an utter pain in the hole. When he could string a coherent sentence together it was to proffer the following explanation,

I’ve had to wait four years for this. Four years!

I have felt every one of those years. But the ante has upped considerably in the last number of weeks. There have been conditions and new routines implemented with such precision as to make me wonder why he cannot apply the same organisation throughout the rest of the year.

The prep begins on Friday evenings. When he goes to “…do the messages”. He secures provisions for the pre-game breakfast. All food must be consumed prior to the commencement of the match. No rustling, no chewing… maximum concentration is required for the 80-minute duration. Anything less than that you are required to work out of your system during half-time.

My husband sets not one but three alarms as a precaution for early morning games. The first will have barely chimed before he springs from the bed like a young buck and hollers in the door of our son’s bedroom en route to the kitchen. Frying pans clatter and bang, the toaster is on overdrive and the kettle screams. Once finished, he sprints upstairs, two steps at a time, while we all trundle behind him, bleary eyed and disorientated.

A budget version of Snow Whites’ dwarves if you will; without the work ethic.

He will have already assumed the position, grabbing the photo of his Dad from the hall so he too can watch the proceedings. Said photo sits alongside me for the duration due purely to the flailing of hands Himself is prone to. As the teams take to the field, the change in his demeanour is perceptible.

A thin line of perspiration appears across his brow and he begins twisting his fingers. He sits in such close proximity to the screen that he can hear Schmidt sneeze. I’m also pretty confident that he hears the verdict of the TMO in the ref’s earpiece before the ref himself. Even the cat knows to hush.

If you had told me several years ago that I would end up chewing my nails upon hearing that two players had failed their HIAs during a game or that with ten minutes remaining on the clock and an exhausted team who had given their all, a yellow card was issued… I would have scoffed. Loudly. But that was before I went full on ‘Blindside’. As in, Sandra Bullock ‘Blindside’.

Because, I too have been gripped by the fever. When my son took to the game a number of years ago, I told him that I would stand on the side-lines in any type of weather once he was on that pitch.

I knew little to nothing of the rules or the game itself. But I learned. When my son stood in the rain. So too did I. As my knowledge increased, so too did the passion.

During the particularly inclement weather, I wear a violent hued pair of wellies. So, my son can pick me out on the sidelines and my husband can keep an eye on my whereabouts lest I take a notion to hop the fence. It is an inexplicable and consuming reaction to something I had no prior interest in. But maybe that’s just it, you don’t have to explain it, you just have to feel for it.

When that final whistle blows, we now have a brief post-mortem before replacing his Dad’s photo in the hall and loading everyone into the car to head to training. This, is how we do.

@thegirlinthepaper