Lisa Brinkworth and her husband, Joseph, in 2005 with their eldest son. Up until our wedding night eight years ago, it had entirely escaped my notice that my new husband was not quite yet grown up – in spite of the fact he was then 41. The wedding festivities over, I eagerly anticipated the start of my life as "Mrs". The wine and roses left by well-wishers in our room lost their appeal as I lay abandoned in the marital bed while hubby matched the hotel kitchen staff pint for pint.
At 3am, I stormed downstairs and demanded that my husband join me immediately. He seemed genuinely bewildered that his actions had incurred my wrath. "But we've years ahead of us, darling," he told me without a hint of remorse. "Can't I have one last blowout with the lads?"
By chance or design – I'm still not sure which – the chef had been an old university friend and I was supposed to understand that they had a lot of?catching up to do. On our wedding?night!
That pretty much set the tone for the next eight years of married life, when, exasperatingly, I found myself playing mother to a Peter Pan, albeit an adorable one.
My husband has just turned 49 and is only now showing signs of maturity – signs so fleeting, however, that I usually miss them. Until we finally swapped our west London flat for our green-belt family home last year, Joseph – "Joe" to his mates – partied and frequented late-night drinking haunts without a care in the world. I was left at home, simultaneously caring for a newborn and toddler while pregnant again, wondering when my husband would deign to arrive for dinner, or at least call to give me a clue as to when I might expect him.
All too often he would turn up around midnight to find me crying over the burnt remnants of a lovingly made supper. He could not understand why I hadn't simply seized the opportunity to have a hot soak and an early night.
On the day our first child was due – the very evening I should have gone into labour – Joseph failed to return from an important "work" meeting. My hospital bag packed, and the delivery suite number beside the bed, I was terrified I would be forced to give birth without my husband by my side.
Joseph had somehow managed to forget the date, in spite of my reminder that very morning. Fortunately for all three of us, baby Gabriel arrived two weeks late on a night that Joseph was at home, having been barricaded in for a fortnight.
To his credit, Joseph rose to the challenge and took control of the delivery when complications arose. I have to hand it to him – he does come up trumps in a crisis.
I had no problem with Joseph inviting his cousin from Sweden to stay?with us for Gabriel's first Christmas eight weeks later. That was until an overgrown gothic teenager turned up with a huge music system and a crate of beer. The much younger cousin was a DJ in Gothenburg, and the two had conspired to host a New Year's Eve party in our home at a stage when I was up all night feeding an infant. Joseph was unaware of this fact because his nights remained blissfully?unbroken.
Every pregnancy and birth heralded a new midlife crisis when Joseph would express his need for freedom in intensive bursts. At the point immediately after a positive pregnancy test, and before the impending delivery, this restlessness would erupt into the marital equivalent of an earthquake. He would actively seek out rowdy nights with friends who were just as keen as he was on the idea of fatherhood, but not quite up to the reality.
We reached a turning point one freezing cold evening when Joseph drove to the kebab shop and failed to show up until 6am. I'd spent the night waiting for news from the police officer who'd been searching London's A&E wards for a missing middle-aged, dark-haired accountant.
He walked in looking sheepish, and, for once, apologised. I gave him 10 minutes to pack his bags. I'd had enough of being the only responsible adult in our household.
But my heart softened when he turned up the next day for the boys' nativity play and tearfully begged me in front of other parents to forgive him. He'd had too much to drink and decided to sleep it off at a friend's house before attempting to drive. Fortunately, his worried friend had already corroborated his story.
To make up for his misdemeanour, he offered to "babysit" the boys while I had a much-needed night out with girlfriends. I returned home at 10pm to find them dancing to pop music loud enough to wake the entire street. The boys' hair was inexplicably gelled and coiffed, and they smelled suspiciously of aftershave. Joseph explained that they couldn't sleep and he thought a party might do the trick.
But Joseph is a great father because he is still a boy himself, and with his 50th birthday looming, and the boys now of school age, he intends to be a good role model. He has been forced to come to terms with the fact that smuggling beer into the school auction is unacceptable.
He now comes home before the boys' bedtime and calls on the rare occasion that he's going to be late. It took him eight years to work out that this one small concession would have prevented our most heated rows. I sympathise with those married women who finally gave up on their immature husbands and left. But I'm glad I've held out for my husband's infantile years to pass.
In spite of my early misgivings, Joseph has always worked hard and is the main breadwinner. And how can I forget that it was his childlike spontaneity and devil-may-care attitude that prompted him to propose on our third date and marry me three months later?
He came to marriage and fatherhood late. He hadn't seen himself as a married man. While he knew he wanted me, and children, he wasn't prepared for what that entailed and admits that in the early years the reality threw him.
He made a concerted effort to change when I threw him out – he realised that he was in danger of losing his family. That on its own made him grow up fast. To this day, he cannot believe he risked everything for his own fun.
Now that his boys are growing up, he wants them to become responsible men and is doing his best to set a good example. "Being more responsible for my family has given me more joy than I believed possible," he tells me. "I just wish I'd known it eight years ago.
"I don't want to put all the blame for my actions at the door of genetics, but I do think that the way men and women are wired has a lot to answer for."
On a recent visit to Legoland, he emerged from the Squid Surfer water ride, soaked to the skin and beaming from ear to ear. To my horror, he was clutching the hands of not three, but two children. "Where's Zach?" I yelled. "What?" he said, looking round. "I was having such fun, I didn't realise I'd left him behind."
It's progress, of a sort. A few years ago, I doubt he would have come back with even one.
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