Don't hide his dirt under the carpets: Anthea Turner is so wrong to blame herself for husband straying

Don't hide his dirt under the carpets: Anthea Turner is so wrong to blame herself for husband straying

Too many years spent posing in chintzy aprons and worshipping housework have clearly warped Anthea Turner’s mind.

In an interview which sounded like it was conducted in that 1950s heyday of domestic servitude, Anthea this week revealed how, after much consideration, she blames herself for her husband Grant straying.

She concluded that having to go out to work and spend months filming in Canada â€" where, ironically, she was recording a programme titled Perfect Housewife â€" was too much for their marriage.

She should have sat at home cooking cupcakes all along, she appears to reason.

Perhaps it is worth mentioning here that the reason Anthea was having to go out and bring back the bacon was because her cheating, good-for-nothing husband’s property ­business had gone bad.

Anthea is a bright, ­energetic, smart woman. Why she ended up with a bozo like Bovey is a ­question in itself.

As for why has she put up with his cheating?

< p>Maybe she truly loves him, maybe she doesn’t want to navigate the rest of her 50s on her own or maybe she felt their marriage was worth fighting for.

Either way, there are plenty of reasons why she might have chosen to forgive his fling with a 25-year-old heiress with a double-barrelled surname.

But surely one of them wasn’t that it was because his affair was her fault.

For time immemorial women have blamed themselves for men’s failings.

We’ve blamed ourselves because men are violent, we’ve blamed ourselves because men are pushier at getting their way at work, we’ve blamed ourselves because they can’t be expected to juggle a demanding job and help out at home.

When really the only ones to blame were them.

Forgiven: Bovey with wife Anthea

 

By shouldering responsibility for the affair publicly, Anthea is protecting Grant from having to do the same.

And so, like a million women before her, she infantilises her husband â€" she treats him like a child who cannot be held culpable for his actions.

Just like all those women who’ve excused a brute by saying he can’t control himself or who’ve excused men’s idleness by saying he doesn’t know how to help.

If women truly want an equal ­relationship with men we have to treat them like equals.

Too many women â€" including those cupcake-cooking and feather-duster waving ones â€" have fallen into the trap of treating men like slow-witted children.

And look where that got Anthea.

In the interview she says after discovering the affair she didn’t cut up his suits or pour away his expensive wine.

“What’s the point of that?” she asked. The point, Anthea, is that it would have shown him exactly how peed off you were with his ­behaviour.

And it might have made him think twice about making the same idiotic mistake again.

Because like a spoilt child who has got away with something once â€" you can be sure there will be a next time.

And how will Anthea deal with that? Will it be her fault that his dinner wasn’t cooked properly? Or his shirt wasn’t ironed?

At least it won’t be the fault of her backside though because, as Anthea informed the interviewer: “Grant’s very keen on it. Oh, he’s very happy with his wife.”

Too right he must be.

He’s exactly like a kid who’s been found with his hand in the sweetie jar â€" whose mum says not to worry because it was her fault for leaving the sweets there.