I Married A Recycled Husband

Tess Stimson reveals what it was like living in the shadow of two former ex-wives only then to become one

- Tess Stimson

Just two hours before our wedding, my soon-to-be husband unlocked the door between our separate hotel rooms and wandered straight in, just as I was stepping into my wedding gown.

‘You can’t come in!’ I cried. ‘It’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding!’

My fiancé shrugged. ‘I don’t believe in superstition,’ he said. ‘And if it doesn’t work, there’s always divorce.’ And with that, he was gone.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. My husband, Brent Sadler was a hard-bitten war reporter. More importantly, he’d seen it all before. It was my first wedding, but he’d already been married — twice.

Like other second or ‘retread’ wives, I knew when I married a recycled husband I wasn’t going to get many firsts. But I had no idea how much I’d be overshadowed by the previous Mrs Sadlers, especially the second one.

Married life

When I became the third Mrs S in July 1993, aged 23, I didn’t even get first dibs on my own name. Brent, then 42, had set up home as a newlywed twice before, and had travelled all over the world with his previous wives.

Romantic weekend in Paris? Done that. Pyramids in Egypt? Done that, too.