Half Life - 4 - Porn
20th November 2020
The Wife is addicted to porn again. House-porn, that is. She is spending hours gawping at other people’s houses when we are in bed together. In spite of driving up traffic on Rightmove she has no intention of buying, or even visiting, any of them. We are not allowed to move. The casual suggestion, over dinner a few months ago, that we were thinking about it resolved that question; the Boys raised immediate and very loud objections. Younger Son was particularly vocal and declared, with a petulance that would have made Trump proud, he would not move out and, even if we did, he would be staying. No loser of elections is our boy.
I thought, after the Boys had closed the subject so decisively, her addiction would go. It did, for a while, but restarted this time when the house opposite us went up for sale. It was my fault. Like all addictions, complete abstinence is the only way. I should have known, but I wanted to take a look too, just to see the price and what it was like inside. Of course you look to see what a house near you is selling for, that’s normal and one of the reasons the Internet was invented. Since we know the owner slightly, and like her, no comments on the furnishings are allowed - even house-porn has rules. With this I kicked the Wife back down the slippery, addictive, slope of spying on other people’s houses without them knowing. She’s returned to being a house-pornoholic, and the laptop joins us on the journey upstairs every night.
Our evening stair-climbing takes place at about 9.00 pm as the tin-rattling quantity of medicines I fill myself with every day drains my energy and by then I’m exhausted. In an act of marital solidarity, she always comes with me. The added benefit is it helps reduce the amount of shouting up the stairs at the Boys to get themselves to bed and stop fighting. Unfortunately, this has given an opening of an hour or two to feed her habit while tucked up in the duvet. Addicts need excuses to feed their habit and she has highjacked Nobby the cancer for this purpose.
Under pretence of needing to change things around should I deteriorate further, and the ability of our current house to cope, houses near and far get fully explored. This comes with an intermittent, often highly critical, commentary on layout, décor, furniture, and even artistic taste in houses that are selected. In particular the stairs, doorways and layout. She is right in one sense to take an interest; you look at houses differently when you are no longer fully physically capable. The daily trip down and then up the stairs with crutches is scary. After the best part of a bottle of wine, doubly so. It doesn’t take a great leap of imagination, or a small failure of balance, to see me tumbling down and landing in a heap. Given Nobby’s residency in my bones a good quality fall would result in some serious snaping noises, the odd jagged edge poking through my skin, and the need for me to take some rather urgent, blue light assisted, transport to the hospital fifteen minutes away.
One solution, to the stairs not the addiction, was provided through a present from a good friend – Bob. Bob is not a builder, but he was more than able to put an additional bannister on our stairs along the side that didn’t have one. That small act has had an enormous effect on my confidence with stairs. Now, I go up and down several times a day and have mastered how to do it with the two bannisters and carrying two crutches. It is one of the best things I have been given since becoming, functionally, a unidexter. Other house alterations, such as the shower rail put in by another friend, Mr P, have been equally life changing. None of these, however, have had the slightest impact on reducing the daily house-snooping with the implication that we might change where we live.
I suppose it’s harmless. Afterall, her victims don’t know they are being spied on and they have put their houses on-line to be looked at, most of them tarting them up specifically for that purpose. As long as I hold strong and resist any suggestions we actually visit any houses, there is no harm in it. Given marriage is all about sharing, I have started asking her to carry my laptop up to the bedroom each evening as well her own. Sitting up in bed next to her, happily browsing wine websites and I provide a riveting commentary on the harvest in Burgundy, the price of new releases way out of my budget, and recent articles by Jancis Robinson about wines not even available in the UK. I can’t believe I have been accused of having an addiction to wine-porn! As long as neither of us take our fantasies out of the virtual world, things will be fine.
House porn is pretty addictive. My wife and I have both succumbed to it in recent years. And we did actually move house recently, but that hasn't stopped it. Now we feel the urge to keep checking...I'm not sure if its a case of "are we sure we made the right decision?" or if it is guiding us on establishing the right budget for each bit of renovating ("don't worry about the £20k kitchen, it'll make it worth much much more..."). We tell ourselves its the latter.
Really enjoying your blog :-)
Confession time. Bike porn is my thing....