Are You An Odd Couple?

Are you an odd couple? A mum friend of mine has started dating again and met a very nice guy through a dating site. She’s happy, he’s happy, their respective kids are happy but the only fly in the ointment seems to be her family who think they make an odd couple. The ‘oddness’ being he’s a very bling Essex boy who loves football and she’s a hippy art teacher. Of course, it shouldn’t bother her but it does simply because their surface differences get mentioned ALL the time. I feel for her because when I first got together with my husband the same was said about us. He’s a 6ft 4 and I’m a 5ft 4′. He loves drinking and partying. I don’t. He’s amusingly rude and sometimes sweary, I’m not. Yet, underneath it all we have similar backgrounds, similar morals and the same idea about family, relationships and children. So even though we look ‘odd’ we’re not. Which is why it irks me when people (usually mums at school) who meet him for the first time (1) feel the need to comment on how different we are and (2) feel the need to tell me that they’re surprised what a great dad he is. Apart from being rude and judgmental, I think it says a whole lot more about them than us. So all this talk about Russell Brand and Geri Halliwell being so ‘strange’ a couple says more about the media than the actual duo. They may have come from different ends of the celeb ladder, and she may be a mum but he’s into the spiritual, she’s into the spiritual. He loves yoga, she loves yoga, both are teetotal with ‘issues’ and both love the limelight. They seem pretty perfect to me. But how about you? Are you an odd match that no one gets and how do you handle it? Let us know.