Couple who divorced after row over her seven cats remarry 30 years later - and now she has FORTY
A couple who divorced over the wife’s seven cats have remarried – even though she now owns a staggering 40 felines.
Professor Trevor Howes, 82, first wed Marlene Howes, 72 in 1968 and they had two children but later split.
Marlene is a Persian cat breeder while Trevor ‘is not a cat lover’ and the couple admit her felines ‘contributed’ to them separating.
But thirty years since they had seen each other Trevor spotted her on a Channel 5 show ‘The Woman With FORTY Cats’, a documentary about Marlene’s life as an award-winning Persian cat breeder.
Trevor decided to get in touch and went out for a meal and on May 14 they married again – even though Marlene now has dozens more cats.
But they have come up with a solution to keep them both happy – they are going to live in separate homes 30 minutes apart so he’s not near the cats.
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Marlene, of Lydney, Gloucestershire, believes their first marriage crumbled due in part to the demands of prepping the felines for shows.
She said: ‘Trevor is not a cat lover – he wouldn’t want them all around the house. When I met him, I had seven cats. It’s a lot to most people.
‘He had a cattery built in the garden, so he didn’t have to share the house with them. I put my life into my cats. It did contribute to us splitting up.’
Trevor, who lives near Tintern, Chepstow, at the house the couple used to share together, added: ‘Marlene and I lost contact all together. Then I just switched on the TV one evening and out of the blue, there she was.
‘She had six or seven cats when we met, and ten when we divorced. Now the current arrangement is that we live in separate houses.’
Despite their living arrangement, Trevor insists that he is still ‘open’ to the idea that they might one day share a house together.
Marlene and Trevor, a professor of precision engineering at the University of Bristol, had children Juliet and James, 46, after they married.
Trevor remarried after divorcing Marlene, but was widowed ten years ago.
The couple will spend their honeymoon in Crete.