Jane Wilde and Stephen Hawking married in 1965, shortly after Hawking learned that he had motor neuron disease. As his illness progressed, his wife became his primary caregiver.
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By 1999, Jane Hawking was a published author.
But the two still managed khổng lồ maintain a close relationship even after their divorce. The former couple lived down the road from each other & met regularly.
In 1999, Hawking wrote a memoir of her relationship with Stephen. “I thought it was terribly important khổng lồ document that life with Stephen,” she said. “I did not want someone coming along in 50 or 100 years, inventing our lives.”
By writing her autobiography – và by revising it and seeing it turned into a motion picture – Jane Hawking reclaimed her role in an extraordinary relationship.
Stephen Hawking’s career would not have been possible without the help of his wife Jane Hawking. Next, read more about the scientist’s life with these Stephen Hawking facts. Then discover the story of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, another acclaimed woman overshadowed by her more famous husband.
He may have been bound lớn a wheelchair & unable to speak, but Stephen Hawking had an incredibly complicated and complex love life that involved affairs và allegations of cheating và abuse.A new book by Hawking’s old friend Leonard Mlodinow (a copy of which was obtained by the Daily Mail) reveals details of Hawking’s marriages and affairs & how the physicist, who communicated by a computer, demanded to be the center of attention, eclipsing most everyone in his life.
Hawking was first married khổng lồ Jane Wilde in the 1960s when the couple were both in their early 20s, & when he was first exhibiting signs of ALS. But their sex life was wanting.
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Jane would become more of a caretaker over the next three decades, “eventually feed him, dress him, bathe him and sit with him through his many hospital visits and near-death experiences.”
“In the process, over time, she’d chiến bại her own identity,” Mlodinow writes. “And with it, her self-worth. ‘’Who am I?’’ she’d wonder.”
The two remained married until 1985 when, after a tracheotomy, Hawking fell for his nurse, Elaine Mason, a fiery redhead who “liked to skateboard và definitely knew how lớn flirt”.
“Maybe one reason they bonded was that she had the flamboyance he would have exhibited if he’d had the use of his body,” Mlodinow writes. “For her part, Elaine wasn’t put off by Stephen’s physical condition. Just the opposite: she was drawn to lớn it.”
At the time of their affair, both Hawking và Mason were still married — he khổng lồ Jane & she to lớn David, “an engineer & self-confessed Hawking super-fan who helped develop Hawking’s speech synthesizer.”
At the same time, Jane was conducting her own affair with Jonathan Hellyer Jones, the choirmaster at her local church in Cambridge.
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Elaine would travel with Hawking whenever he did speeches abroad, and, according khổng lồ the book, “She loved his strength. She’d speak và listen lớn him patiently, appreciative of the time & energy he expended to lớn communicate with her, và she began khổng lồ confide in him.”
Meanwhile Jane went khổng lồ Hawking và explained she was having an affair and according to lớn Mlodinow, he gave his blessing. “The idea was that the affair would be kept ‘private & discreet’ and the family would ‘evolve to lớn include them all’… ‘It would be a new arrangement, a kind of extended family. What Jane didn’t expect was that Stephen would extend the family again — lớn include Elaine.”
“If Stephen và Jane had followed a path from man-and-lover to infant-and-carer, he and Elaine followed the reverse trajectory,” he wrote.
“This led to lớn a new ‘new arrangement.’ It was a constellation as complex as any in the night sky, encompassing Stephen, Elaine, Jane, and Jonathan; the three Hawking children; and their various interconnecting relationships’.
Stephen & Elaine eventually broke out of the arrangement và married in 1995.
Elaine quit being his nurse khổng lồ become his wife, but would still cook for him & prepare his favorite foods lượt thích curries & roast dinners.
Elaine “loved to hold his hand & even though they couldn’t sleep in the same bed, she would come down in the night just to look at him và touch him,” the book said.
“‘ helped Stephen but he helped me,” Elaine told Mlodinow. “I came from a dysfunctional family. My parents didn’t look after us very much. I loved (my ex-husband), but we weren’t in love. I married him because I was 25 & he was the first man who asked me, & that’s what you did. So the feeling of being loved was special. & I was in love with Stephen & he was in love with me. He accepted me và loved me for who I am inside.”
Hawking’s daughter, Lucy, & son, Tim, however, weren’t as enamored of Elaine & the world was shocked when they accused Elaine of abuse. In 2000, police investigated claims that Elaine had slammed Hawking’s wrist on his wheelchair, allegedly refused to let him use his urine bottle so he wet himself, allegedly let him slip beneath the water while in the bath, causing water to lớn enter the tracheotomy site in his throat và allegedly left him alone in the backyard on the hottest day of the year, causing him to lớn suffer a heat stroke and severe sunburn.
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The allegations were strongly denied by Hawking and his assistant Judith Croasdell, và the police concluded their investigation in 2004 without charge. “Whatever happened or didn’t happen, one thing everyone did agree upon was that Elaine and Stephen had always had a stormy relationship,” Mlodinow wrote. “One moment it was: ‘You’re crazy, I hate you, & never want lớn see you again’; the next it was ‘I love you more than anything & could never live without you.’”
One night when Mlodinow came to lớn dinner, Elaine erupted, saying: “It’s just that I’ve been his slave for đôi mươi years, and it’s enough.” She later apologized for her outburst.
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After Hawking’s death, Elaine told the author, “Stephen was lượt thích an actor. He needed lớn be the center of attention, the center of the universe. He loved it. It gave him energy. He loved people.He had a very tough life but he was an incredibly brave man. He never, ever complained, ever, but he needed to lớn be the center of attention. And, yes, I probably resented that. Not all the time, but when I was tired or one of the carers was flirting with him, or whatever it was. But it would be temporary. The resentment would pass. Deep down, he was my only love.”
The couple divorced in 2006 after Hawking fell for another nurse, Diana King, who was 39 years younger than the physicist & suffered from manic depression… something Hawking seemed to like.
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Mlodinow adds: “Was he attracted to troubled women? I wasn’t sure. I thought Diana was intelligent và well read. Nice khổng lồ chat with; I learned stuff. But that was when she was on her meds.” He later speculates that “physical desire was what drove their connection or it could have been something deeper, a connection between two souls.”
While the two got engaged, Hawking was worried a marriage would cause more problems with his children and backed out, devastating Diana, who once told Mlodinow that Hawking had ‘the most expressive face in the world’ and she could tell what he was thinking by the way his mouth twitched.”
