Was Paul McCartney’s Marriage To Linda Really That Happy, And Was His Marriage To Heather Really That Bad?
I remember reading about this when it first surfaced, but I filed it in the back of my mind and didn’t recall it until the other day. Was Sir Paul’s marriage to Linda really as happy as it was always assumed to be? It would seem that Linda McCartney wrote a vegetarian cookbook with literary agent Peter Cox, and in the course of it made some 19 tapes in which she admitted her depression and frustration when it came to dealing with her high-profile marriage to Sir Paul:
“There were moments when Linda would feel deeply unhappy about her marriage,” Cox said.
“In her low moments, the idea of leaving him did cross her mind, but she immediately rejected it.
“Her family was the most important thing in her life and there was no way she’d give them up. At the low points, she did feel trapped.”
It seems that Sir Paul was an exacting husband, wanting his wife’s total attention and devotion:
Linda found it easier to accept being bossed around by McCartney rather than confront him.
Of course, Paul had charm, was clever and interesting, sometimes rather soulful, even.
And no one is suggesting he was not a kind and affectionate husband.
But once the honeymoon had passed, Linda was to discover that she had married a complicated person who was self-absorbed, rather arrogant, prone to black moods, and with a not particularly well developed sense of humour.
His possessiveness, flattering at the outset, eventually led to friends observing that she seemed like a ‘caged animal’.
All in all, McCartney was not a man who was easy to be married to.
So was Linda happy? “Sometimes yes, sometimes no,” says a friend. “It was like any marriage - it had its ups and downs and it became a habit.
“But it wasn’t the big fairytale.’
To summarize a somewhat lengthy article, it would seem that marriage to Sir Paul wasn’t the glorious experience that so many have tried to make it out to be; however, while Linda did sometimes chafe and rebel against the restrictions put up by her rather demanding husband, she determined that when it all came down to it, her marriage was worth the effort, and she was determined to make it work. While there were a couple of times in the marriage when she did leave, she always returned, because her marriage and her family were very important to her.
Why did the marriage work? According to the article, it was because Linda accepted how the relationship worked, but also because she was, at heart, a gentle person. I’ll also add my thought…I think she loved Sir Paul, even with his faults, and I think Sir Paul loved her, as much as he could ever love anyone.
So how does this factor into Sir Paul’s marriage to Heather Mills? When he met Heather, by all accounts he was a broken man, still grieving after the death of his beloved Linda to cancer. He was depressed, sad, and he wasn’t performing…but suddenly, here was a golden light at the end of a dark tunnel. He pursued her, wooed her, and finally won her over…although, by some accounts, she was more than ready to be wooed, it was just a matter of going through the motions.
But Sir Paul soon found out that Heather was no Linda. Strong-willed, feisty, and egotistical, just like himself, she was completely the opposite of Sir Paul’s first wife. For a while, it seemed that he was entranced by this change in his life, enough to chase after the outspoken blonde and enough to propose…which she accepted.
However, in a clash of egos, one has to win and one has to concede. There just is not room for two stars in a marriage, and Heather, by many accounts, could not handle the fact that her husband was more famous and loved than she was or was likely to be. In this case, it seems that both people are claiming victory and neither are willing to give an inch. As the marriage broke down, Heather made tapes of her own, supposedly with Paul’s consent, detailing such things as their sex life, his refusal to give more of his vast fortune to charity, and supposedly an admission that he hit Linda “once or twice”. And it seems that Heather played this part of the tapes for unnamed people between takes in her media blitz last week.
Now it seems that Heather is having second thoughts about her series of defensive interviews after Sir Paul has hinted that he would press for full custody of their daughter, since Heather intimated that their lives were in danger. In a meeting with Sir Paul and his legal team, they reportedly are trying to hammer out some sort of deal.
So what does all this mean? It means, simply, that we don’t always know everything about someone’s marriage, no matter how public the people are or how much we like to think we know them. It would seem, on the surface, that Linda was more willing to make sacrifices to her husband, and more willing to try to work with his personality instead of against it, for the good of her marriage than Heather was. Now, that beggars the question…should Linda have sacrificed so much, should she have stuck up for herself more, was she a weakling dominated by a stronger personality? I’m not so sure. By all accounts she truly loved her husband, and when you love someone that sometimes means dealing with their faults.
I am in no way condoning spousal abuse, and if Sir Paul did indeed hit Linda (and there is no true evidence that he did) then I hope she, at the time, did something about it. And if he did hit Heather at some point (and there is no record that he has, just her word), I hope she did the same. But we don’t have any reliable record of what truly did happen…for all we know, any alleged incident with Linda was an isolated one, done in a moment of anger, that he immediately regretted and tried to make amends for. If so, that is completely different than a long-standing pattern of continual and unrepentant physical abuse. But was he emotionally abusive to her? That is a question for which we don’t have clear answers. In fact, we don’t have clear answers to any of this, just Heather’s word.
And therein lies the problem. Heather Mills believes the public hates her for marrying a Beatle, but in reality the public hates her because of her long-standing, rather free and easy relationship with the truth. In the past, she has had a bit of problem with the truth, including saying that her mother also lost a leg (but it was reattached), that she’s always been a strict vegetarian (when she wasn’t cooking Lancashire hot pots), that she ran away from home at age 13 and “slept rough” in a sleeping bag under railway arches with drug addicts and prostitutes (when she wasn’t enrolled in school or living with her mother and stepfather), that her ex was a gay MI6 agent (when he wasn’t making films), and that she was an investigative journalist (in fact, she stole the identity of a journalist who also had the name Heather Mills).
Is this a case of the little girl who cried wolf, or is this another one of her stretched truths? The problem is, until she actually plays the tapes for people to hear and transcribe (and not just heavily edited versions cut to make her look good), we won’t know. And even then, we won’t really know, since all we will know is what Sir Paul chose to say. He could have flat lied. My guess is that the two of them will come to an agreement before that will happen, and then she’ll be able to say that she is prevented from playing the tapes because of a clause in some legal paper.
But that now brings us full circle. Was Sir Paul’s marriage to Linda really that happy? Was he abusive in any sense of the word? We simply don’t know. But I’ll guess that their marriage was like any other long-standing marriage…full of ups and downs, of fights and reconciliations, of arguing and laughing, of harsh words and kind phrases. They were young when they got married, and people often mellow with age from the brashness of youth. The hot temper of a young person can sometimes cool down with the passage of time. And Linda’s marriage was obviously very important to her…so much so that she was willing to do just about anything to help it along. Did that mean putting up with Sir Paul’s tempers and ego? Possibly. But it is also possible that through her gentleness, kindness, and obvious love for the man, she helped him quiet the demons inside him and they settled down into a happy and fulfilling partnership. Once again, I am in NO way condoning spousal abuse, but I just don’t think that was the case with Sir Paul and Linda.
Was it the case with Heather? Due to her rather informal relationship with the truth, we may never truly know.
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This makes Linda sound weak. She wasn’t. She walked out on her first husband (taking their daughter with her) because she didn’t want to follow him to Africa. She moved to England to be with Paul prior to their marriage and left her daughter in NYC. She wanted him and he wanted her. Paul went to all her cancer treatments with him. Her last interview had he going on about how much he supported her. She said he told him that he loved her more after 29 years of marriage than before. His adult children love him. They had a real marriage and they wanted to be together.
Heather is offensive. Her taping his every word shows she intended to blackmail/extort him. You do not do that in a real marriage you want to save. If she was abused she had the money and the means to get out - she didn’t. Paul left her and she is angry. I think she is a liar who plays victim when she doesn’t win.
Comment by Barbara — November 5, 2007 @ 1:11 pm
I never said she was weak. In fact, I took great pains to portray her positively. But not everyone is perfect. It does take a great deal of stength to stay with a man such as Paul, and to help him change for the better. I think Linda was that woman and was the love of his life. Heather just came along at the right time, when Paul was hurting, and took advantage of that.
But not everyone is perfect, even Linda, and I’m sure she had her faults as well.
Comment by k — November 5, 2007 @ 1:22 pm
I think you’re right claiming that Paul and Linda were the loves of each other’s lives - soulmates. The one thing missing in this piece is the fact that Linda, a very strong and intelligent woman, came into her marriage with her own wealth. Had she wanted to leave McCartney, she could have done so and still lived well. Heather on the other hand, and as you pointed out, came in with nothing except what appears to be a burning desire for fame and money. And soon she’ll have both, though I suspect the fame will be fleeting because everyone has become increasingly tired and bored with her shenanigans.
Comment by Doreen — November 5, 2007 @ 9:04 pm
Everyone’s marriage has ups and downs, that’s nothing new. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to be married to one half of one of the most creative duos of modern times. Even Yoko threw John out for a while because she couldn’t put up with him.
I’ve been reading Patti Boyd’s book about what it was like being married to George Harrison and Eric Clapton. She said that while she believed that George and Eric genuinely loved her, she felt she always came in a distant second to their music. I’d guess that it was the same for Linda and Paul. But whether to feed his own ego or to be in control of her, he included her in everything (she was in his band, for crissakes) and in all the time they were together they were only apart for those days that Paul spent in the slammer in Japan.
My husband is a “normal” person, and I can’t imagine what it would be like spending 24 hours a day with him every day of every year.
Whether Heather Mills is telling the truth or not, she’s pretty much made a mess of things by her way of going about it. Nobody is going to believe you (even if you are telling the truth) if you act like such a famewhore while you’re doing it.
Comment by crazymom — November 7, 2007 @ 1:25 pm