This month has been full of rumors about the state of Victoria and David Beckham’s marriage. I honestly don’t think that David is doing the most to deny those rumors, but Victoria is. I go back and forth and Victoria, quite honestly – I think sometimes she gets the short end of the stick because she actually cares, she cares about her image, she cares about her marriage, she cares about keeping her family together. While she cares so much, David often seems somewhat disengaged from the marriage. So do we dislike Posh for caring? For not giving up? I don’t know. I do know that she continues to do the most to present this happy-family image. Posh has been in New York this week, and she gave a speech at the Forbes Women’s Summit on Tuesday.
Victoria Beckham celebrated her marriage to David Beckham in the wake of reports that the couple was on the road to separation. The fashion designer, 44, who shares four children with the soccer star, 43, spoke openly about how she balanced her personal and professional life.
“I try really, really hard. I try hardest to be the best mother,” Victoria said at the Forbes Women’s Summit in New York City on Tuesday, according to Hello!. “I am trying to be the best wife and the best professional. When I get home I try to put the phone down and spend time with the children and spend time with David,” she continued.
“I have the support of an incredible husband. We really are equal with everything we do at home with the children,” Victoria said. “When I’m away he’s the one doing the school run and doing the cooking.”
“When I take Harper to school I tell her, ‘Harper you’re a girl and you can do anything.’ She’s a strong woman. She wants to be an inventor. She’s a strong smart woman. A little woman.”
This just made me sort of sad, because I believe her: I believe that she tries really, really hard. She tries to be a great mom, a great wife, a great designer and a great businesswoman. And then she’s criticized for trying too hard, for caring so much, for striving to be better. We can’t win as women, remember. We have to be all things to all people all the time, and when we try to do that, we’re criticized for A) not being perfect enough and B) trying to be perfect. And where’s David in all of this? He just jets off and hangs out with his bros.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
If you have to try hard something’s wrong.
I don’t agree. Marriage is hard work. I believe Victoria, too: she works at it. And like Kaiser, it makes me a little sad to see comments like this. We can’t win as women.
When there’s cheating, though, it’s no use trying to be a perfect spouse. Your husband or wife wants someone or something else, and it’s not you. I guess you could stick around waiting for your spouse to wander back.
Yes! In this sentence, where is the “I’m trying to be the best me”? Nowhere, because it’s something man can do, but women can’t.
Yes, and I think David works too. My cousin was really going through a tough time with her husband, they had to live – them and two kids and an elderly parent – in a tiny trailer, due to some tough situations. She told me she prayed to please fall in love with her husband again, because the small space made them all tense, and it worked! I think that’s, partly, why I’m single. I don’t know if I’d fight through. Marriage is work, but I see long term marriages do make people happy. They have a great place now, btw.
I like that story Lilly (re your cousin). I totally get it. Some days I want to just run away but I bite my tongue and wait for it to pass. And it does. It is work of a different sort. Happy Posh is working on keeping all the balls in the air as she does seem very family oriented.
I disagree! Marriage is NOT easy!
Both sides really have to try hard to make it work!
🤭
I’ve never been married, but I know both sides have to try while dating, so I’m sure being married with children and everything that goes with it can NOT be easy.
Why, though? Relationships are hard work sometimes. As much as we’d all love to be in the “marriage is easy” camp, the reality is that group is a minority. Sharing your life with another is not for the faint of heart, both existentially and in the mundane nitty gritty details of everyday life. Our society treats marriage like it’s this natural state where people just live together and love each other and everything is peachy. The reality of often far different. I’m tired of that narrative of marriage, it’s merely one of many.
If only one of you is trying hard while the other one shrugs their shoulders and goes “meh, whatevs”, then yes, something is wrong. Often, women shoulder the emotional burden of the relationship because men are generally not taught how to or that they even should.
Marriage is easy…if both partners are committed, if both partners are flexible during times of stress, if there is enough chemistry, etc. I agree there are so many other ways to live a life and make relationships. Marriage is a historical institution, a cultural path to support pair bonding and streamline resources for raising children. The child mortality rate before age 5 was 50% at some times, so creating new humans and raising them to adulthood was serious work. Love, intimacy, and the modern expectations of marriage were secondary to scratching out life. Times have changed, that’s for sure.
A healthy marriage is work, but not as much work as Victoria is putting in. There is a point relationships when the constant effort is too much and it is no longer worth it.
I think she tries really hard in areas of her life including her marriage, I get the sense that her husband does not try nearly as hard as she does.
I agree with most people here, long term relationships are hard and they fall apart unless the two people are putting in effort and a lot of work. Add kids, homes to take care of, carrers, the usual stuff like sickness and your own parents getting sick and old and lots and lots of problems each relationship is tried by. So I feel for her and I root for her. She seems to really put the effort in mentaining a happy family, a real home, I would think her business also does not come easy for her, she was at least brave enough to try and to learn all the different things one has to learn to become a designer. And then at some point if she has a husband who does not appreceate her effort….then maybe she would be better off without him. Overall I struggle to understand his allure. His Mickey mouse voice and given he played football for the most od his life, not too much to talk to him about probably too.
My thought exactly when I read her quote…They looked MISERABLE together the day of the wedding (Megan and Harry).
I want to tell VB to stop trying and dump the cheating lout.
But that’s not fair. They built a family, a life. I think giving up is the easy way out. If it’s just not meant to be, I understand but I like to see people try to stay together. It is hard work as the above posters are saying.
And this doesn’t mean David doesn’t work hard as well. We don’t know.
Why should she do all the work though? To me the message is she is trying her very best and he isn’t. That’s not fair either. And I feel that you shouldn’t always have to present some tip-top, perfect, try hard version of yourself to keep your marriage together. It works both ways.
But we do know that David is not putting in the hard work, he is cheating on her repeatedly. You cannot be fully engaged in your marriage or family life and have side pieces.
I think she is trying to be her own form of perfect to try to hold her marriage and family together when really it would be better for everyone to just let go, find someone who will be thrilled and proud to have her on their arm.
She look gud ,dats all
I believe she tries hard and always has but with David Douchebag it’s never going to be enough to stop him dipping it elsewhere. She has always adored him but I’ve never been sure it was ever reciprocated. From what i can recall he almost pulled out of getting married.
Exactly.
Yeah, I always got the sense she was the one who did the emotional lifting in the marriage. Which is a shame for the kids who grew up seeing that and thinking it’s acceptable to treat their partner that way.
Exactly.
He’s unlikely to leave her because he really does dote on their kids. She may get fed up & unhitch him.
I feel like the years of ED is really starting to show in her face, and that depresses me. I have so much respect for the ambition and work she puts into her fashion career, and it makes me sad to think that even with all that wealth, success, and family, she was never able to recover from that toxic mindset. I’m not sure being married to Beckham, with all of his infidelities, has been particularly helpful.
I used to defend her frame but can’t anymore. She goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid nourishing her body and needs help. I feel sorry for her. EDs are destructive in every way and if she doesn’t get into recovery she won’t live long enough to see her grandchildren.
She just always looks miserable maybe she has weird teeth and doesn’t like smiling but people in that business who know her say she’s really funny. I think David is good looking but he doesn’t do it for me and that VOICE no just no but he seems like a good dad and dotes on all the kids.
Sounds like PR ground work for pro-Vic side during divorce.
She tried. He didn’t. Tried so so hard. He let it fail.
If you have to try hard to make it work, try that hard, without your partner trying too, just get out.
Thank you.
Exactly my thoughts!
Maybe if she’d “tried hard” to build a career in her own right, rather than faking a happy marriage and relying on her husband to financially bail out her business, she’d be happier and more successful.
That’s really unfair IMO. Vicky has built most of her career herself not to mention she made Beckhams what they are. She helped David Beckham to become an icon. It is admirable how far she managed to come even though she is not great at anything she does. That is the kind of work ethic I wish I had.
She made him a global Icon, without her he would be just another retired football player. She upgraded him.
@sass
Absolutely. She built the brand and was the brains behind it. Otherwise, he’d just be another chav footballer with too many tattoos and a tacky orange wife.
He was an extremely successful footballer, give him some credit. Yes she cleaned him up and helped build up the Beckham brand, but he had the talent on the pitch and they are better together (which is why I think they are united together for now).
She also got raked over the coals for her chav WAG appearances during England’s World Cup times (remember her and Cheryl Cole in the stands). They’ve both had their missteps with how they’ve presented themselves to the public over the years.
I like both of them and I am not bashing Victoria but she’s not a savant who picked up Becks from the gutter. He’s one of the most talented players in England’s history, with or without her.
Well, geez, if your spouse can’t bail you out, who can?
I find it’s funny to comment on what are basically assumptions and rumors. The only thing I see is someone who is haunted by the potential imperfection of her appearance to the point of gauntness. On the other side I see flaunting the family for image purposes on both sides, hers and her husband. I see nepotism and a bunch of clichés. I see a cheater who stayed home. That’s it. Nothing to do with Victoria being a woman or not. She strikes me as looking miserable but what do I know? This is all speculation-of-the-month.
This feels like a Jennifer Garner/Affleck situation. He roamed, she tried hard blah blah blah
Yeah if you have to put it out into the public realm in such exact wording something is painfully wrong with the situation.
If it wasn’t for Victoria, David wouldn’t be where he is today as a global icon. He was a good enough footballer to make it, but would it have cemented him the way he is right now? Not sure. You can tell that she tries so hard and so much but that it’s not appreciated. Maybe they shouldn’t have been TMI with their marriage or family in general, but this David Beckham family man image is a farce–other than the fact he enjoys being a father to their children. What do their children think and feel to see that a happy family “image” may not help anything and hope that they themselves don’t feel the pressure to be anything other than themselves.
Addendum: all those flying around and doing different business things around the world…David, that doesn’t really show that you’re trying for the family.
ITA that she made him and the brand he is today – he would have just been another has been footballer who’s now a TV pundit. He was good but he was never great, he is no Ronaldo.
He will of course will say it was the other way around but anyone who paid attention would see otherwise. He is as thick as he sounds.
Anyone have any clue what the long sleeved flowy pastel outfit is? I’m sure it’s way out of my price range, but hey.
Love is a connection, marriage is a contract.
I do feel badly for her. I don’t have many financial resources, but I do have a husband who adores me and that’s way more important to me than having millions in the bank (although wouldn’t that be nice too?!) She clearly does not have a husband who adores her despite her many successes.
I wish she would stop trying to foist her kids on the public, especially since they are still so young and frankly none have exhibited any really special talents. But again, they’re so young. Do you think she would ever let little Harper actually BE an inventor? Go to college? Develop as her own person and not the offspring of famous people? My bet is that by the time that kid is a teenager, she’ll be yet another nepotism model. It’s very sad. It’s like these kids have all the resources but in the end, very little choice other than being famous for SOMETHING.
I like her, always have. She’s funny and attractive and a caring mom. Only redeeming quality about him for me is his focus on the kids. I could never be married to a cheating horn dog. For that she should be congratulated, for sticking it out with him.