Day 9

RELATIONSHIPS IN ISOLATION

All of those little things that never mattered before are about to come under the microscope …

I’ve had three husbands – two short term marriages followed by the real thing that has withstood the test of time, cynicism, ageing and familial dysfunction. Had I been forced into isolation with my first husband, he most probably would have killed me, while the second husband would have definitely expired at my hand. When I recently informed husband number three (Ol’ 76) that many couples were facing months of isolation together, he rolled his eyes and said “good luck with that!” As we have worked and lived together happily for the past couple of decades, I assumed he wasn’t referring to us, but I did wonder how many others might cope with forced cohabitation day in and day out – given that their relationships weren’t based on relentless, unending contact. Then of course, there are the neighbours who live close enough to be nodding acquaintances but not so close that you’re chatting over the fence like Andy Capp’s wife and her hair-curlered chums. Neighbour disputes have always had the propensity to get out of hand over the merest trifle, from doggy-doo-doo on lawns to chimney smoke, missing cats, noisy pets, loud music, unruly teenagers and unsightly renovations. With neighbours stuck beside each other all day, every day, and couples forced into a 24/7 existence with a lot of time of their hands, some of our most stable towns and suburbs could become battle zones within a short space of time.

Things that annoy people are probably responsible for most of the conflict in the world today, and in the average 15 hours of waking time in a day, there are 900 minutes or 54,000 seconds of possible annoyance time. Multiplying that by a minimum of 14 days isolation results in 12,600 minutes or over 750,000 seconds of time that could be spent either getting on or arguing. If you add children or pets into that mix, the consequences could be terrifying! My cousin has a neighbour who confronted them one day about her dead cat. It seems a red-bellied black snake entered her property from their side and attacked the cat, which sadly died. She informed them that their snake had killed her cat – their snake! She also told the council that my cousin’s chimney was an illegal one that poured smoke into her bedroom window, but as she had sold them the house in the first place, it made her look more than a little silly! The main problems I’ve had with neighbours have involved music noise, as I’m a fairly intolerant woman with a short fuse when it comes to bassy doosh-doosh trespassing through my windows and permeating my private sanctuary. Fortunately, I’m also a retired musician who still owns PA equipment, so I’ve been able to fight fire with fire and get them to tone it down. There’s nothing like two massive JBL speakers pumping out bagpipe or bluegrass music at maximum decibels at two o’clock in the morning to get peoples’ attention! It’s clearly not the most mature response to a noisy neighbour, but I’ve never claimed to be mature (or sane).

Lately, a number of couples have passed along the street in front of our house walking their dogs, while others have children in tow and some simply wander along in pairs chatting away – all doing their bit for social distancing. It would be nice to think that everybody could be like that, but we don’t live in a perfect world and some couples have marital problems. As a woman with two ex-husbands, I know a thing or two about marital strife, and being able to withdraw to a safe distance (or in some instances, to a whole other state) is often a necessity when you’re stuck with somebody who loves to have the last word. I recall some eight years back we were living in a tiny hamlet down by the coast and I was out feeding the chooks when a huge hullabaloo erupted from the property behind us. We lived on several acres, so it was normal to hear nothing of our neighbours for days on end, but on this particular day our single male neighbour’s ex-girlfriend arrived to have her last, extremely noisy word. They say truth is stranger than fiction, and on this occasion I wouldn’t have believed what she’d said if it had been on TV. It seems he’d been unfaithful to her and she’d walked in on him and his bit of fluff to be confronted with a horrible, horrible truth – apparently she’d funded all of his erectile dysfunction medication and surgery and had (in her words) stuck by him while he’d gone through years of it. Clearly, the procedure had been successful, but the idiot had decided to try it out on somebody else. Needless to say, I learned a little more about human beings and things that can go wrong in relationships that day!

As to today’s families stuck together within the walls of their homes for a while longer than normal, only time will tell if there’s a baby boom around Christmas or if the divorce rate will skyrocket. We’re living in a time like no other, which makes us pioneers and guinea pigs at the same time, doesn’t it? While social distancing will put paid to extra-marital horizontal folk dancing, those relationships always had a use-by date and were never going to work out. As to the rest of the world, here’s my advice for maintaining a healthy relationship (neighbourly or otherwise) during lockdown, isolation, involuntary incarceration or whatever you want to call it:

Do not, under any circumstances, offer to show your neighbour the right way to cut grass just because you’re bored. If you do, it’s gloves off for the next decade.
Your partner may be putting on weight, but telling them will not win you any Brownie points – it will not only have the opposite effect, but if you’re not the cook in the house, you will find yourself going hungry for some time.
It is bad manners to suggest a third round of rumpy-pumpy within a 24 hour period unless that’s something you’ve always done.
If your partner is female and her nail salon is closed indefinitely, it IS important and should not be greeted with derision.
If your partner is male and toilet paper is in short supply, it IS important and should not be greeted with derision.
Bedtime stories to young children should not include using your spouse as an example of an ugly stepsister or a child-eating ogre, regardless of how you feel about each other.
Children, be kind to your parents while in isolation. Eventually, you will be free and you never know when you might need a kidney transplant.

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