A Warrington, Cheshire man, Clive Bunden has divorced his wife, Irene and married his mother-in-law.
Reports say the mother-in-law and son-in-law have been living happily together for over 3 decades despite Clive’s initial marriage to Irene, Brenda’s daughter in 1977.
They claim to have braved public outcry against their relationship and worked at living happily for the past 13 years.
In the course of Clive’s courtship with Irene’s mother, he was arrested when he asked the older woman to marry him. He was told that there was a “lawful impediment” and could spend up to seven years in jail if they went ahead.
However, Irene remarried and Clive campaigned doggedly for the 500-year-old law to be altered.
According to him, “I thought we should be married because we had been thought everything together. We were being stopped unfairly and I didn’t think it was right so I wanted to change it.”
Sadly, the law was changed in 2007 allowing the courtship and marriage and they eventually got married. A European court ruled that a ban on in-laws marrying was a violation of human rights.
Clive said that the moment they “heard the news (about lifting the ban) on TV in September 2005, I went down on my knees and proposed to Brenda. I had tears in my eyes.”
The couple said that irrespective of public backlash, they have had the most blissful union.
According to Clive, “people thought that we wouldn’t last but we are stronger than ever.
“We’re together 24/7 and there’s magic to it,” 77-year-old Brenda said.
“Clive is a gentleman and he looks after me. I can get a bit argumentative but he quietens me down.”
Brenda described how she was not even a fan of Clive’s when he married her daughter. She disliked him from the onset.
Clive had two daughters with Irene, Sarah and Tanya before they got divorced in 1985.
He began dating Brenda, in secret thereafter and “we fell in love. One night, he took me for a drink and we ended up kissing” Brenda said.
When they got married on the 17th of March 2017, at the same place that Clive married Irene, family members did not attend.
According to Brenda, “Our families didn’t come because they didn’t agree with it. But all we cared about was being with each other.”
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