Living in the shadow of HIS EX-WIFE

He’d been divorced for two years, but finding a photo of her husband’s ex still left Claire Calman riddled with self-doubt

- CLAIRE CALMAN

Hunting for a roll of sticky tape, I came across a photograph in a drawer, face up in a silver frame. I had never seen the woman in the picture before, yet I knew at once who she was. Her hair was light brown and there was a soft smile on her lips.

I knew who she must be — because there was a man, too, a man half turned away from the camera towards the woman, while she looked up at him adoringly. The man was my then-boyfriend — now husband — and the woman, his ex-wife.

At that moment, standing in my boyfriend’s flat, I felt the same as when I was punched in the stomach in the playground at primary school — winded, breathless, as if a supernatural force had given the ground beneath me a tug, sending me reeling. I examined the photo: was Wife Number One more attractive than me? Slimmer than me? Altogether better than me?

There was no need for competition — she and my partner had been divorced for two years before we even met. And yet I couldn’t help wondering if I measured up. He never said anything to indicate I was lesser, so there was no solid foundation for my self-doubt, but I wondered if, secretly, I was a disappointment, a make-do substitute who could never match up to the original.

I met my husband Larry through work; his company published my first novel, and I knew he was divorced. It didn’t bother me. He was 39, I’d have been worried if he’d never had a serious relationship.

Before we got married, Larry and I lived together for a year in the flat where he’d lived with his first wife. After his divorce, he had partly refurbished the flat, revamping the bedroom, his study, the bathroom, but the kitchen and living room remained the same.