Mrs Einstein, you know, cited physics as a difference for her divorce. If you took out motor neurone disease, you are still left with physics. “Stephen and me, motor neurone disease and physics. “The truth was, there were four partners in our marriage,” says Jane. “Stephen’s mother once said to me, ‘We don’t like you because you don’t fit into our family.’” On another occasion she learned by chance that the Hawkings were planning to move to Cambridge so they could be there when the marriage foundered, as they were sure it eventually would.īut it wasn’t just about a lack of support from the wider family. From the outset, Stephen’s “eccentric” family made no secret of the fact that they didn’t think the marriage would survive. How much were the demands on their marriage the product of Stephen’s disease – without it, might they still be married today? Jane isn’t sure: although his health was a huge strain, there were others. Jane, though, was isolated and overwrought. The Hawkings, then parents of two young children, were living in Cambridge, where he was garnering a reputation as one of the most glittering scientists of his generation. Jane met Jonathan when, to give her a break from the constant demands of caring for Stephen, a friend suggested she should take up singing in the local church choir, run by Jonathan. The only thing is that they’ve had to minimise the strains and struggles, because in our real life the difficulties of dealing with Stephen’s disease were much greater than they appear in the film.”Īnd, yes, the impression given in the film that she and Stephen managed to split up without too much acrimony – and that Jane’s new partner and now husband, musician Jonathan Hellyer Jones, became part of their immediate family – is indeed an accurate one (although for a long time after they met, their relationship was platonic). ![]() So from an emotional point of view, it’s spot on. “The important thing is that the feelings, where they are there, are very much true to our experiences. In the face of pressures that were almost too much to bear, and alongside her friendship with another man, they somehow kept their marriage together for a quarter of a century before ending it with a remarkable degree of equanimity.ĭoes the film present an accurate portrait of their marriage, which began at Trinity Hall in Cambridge in 1965? They ploughed into marriage in the face of his parents’ pessimism about its chances of success, and had three children. ![]() Her relationship with Stephen started when both refused to be daunted by the fact that Stephen had just been diagnosed with terminal motor neurone disease. Jane Hawking: ‘The difficulties of dealing with Stephen’s disease were much greater than they appear in the film.’
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