Former politician Simon Bridges and his wife Natalie share how dramatically their family life has changed. Photo / Amalia Osborne
In 2022, when Simon Bridges left behind the buzz of the Beehive, his wife Natalie not-so-secretly wondered how it was going to go living together full-time again.
For most of their marriage, they’d lived apart – “Herein lies the secret to a happy relationship,” quips Simon. And at the time he withdrew from politics, Natalie even joked the next story the Weekly did might just be about their divorce.
But today, as they relax side by side on a yellow velvet sofa in their inner-city Auckland apartment discussing their 20th wedding anniversary, it’s clear no lawyers have been called.
If anything, their marital bond has been strengthened – even if friends find it hard to tell because of the continual ribbing the good-humoured couple love to dish out to each other.
“It was humour that brought us together at uni – that sort of sarcastic, British silly humour,” shares English-born Natalie, 42. “We take the mickey out of each other and I think a lot of people think our marriage must be in trouble. But roasting each other, warts and all, is how we roll. And some people aren’t sure how to take that.”
Case in point: two of Natalie’s paintings are framed on the wall above them. They’re inspired by the Garden of Eden, but with no cloying observations, Simon reckons they look like an undercooked and overdone omelette with bits of capsicum thrown in.
Not taking things too seriously and being able to laugh together at life’s absurdities is their modus operandi – especially while coordinating careers and raising their three children, Emlyn, 13, Harry, 11, and Jemima, seven – while moving from a countryside setting in Tauranga to an apartment in Auckland.
“Post-politics, it’s been a lot of fun,” says former National leader Simon, 48, who is now the Auckland Business Chamber CEO.
“I love politics, but it’s a hard life. You’re working 24/7 and by the end, my worry was that my kids were so used to me not being there, they didn’t mind that I wasn’t.”
Natalie confirms, “And that was the case. They didn’t notice when Simon was gone. In fact, yesterday it was 6.30pm and Simon wasn’t home, and they all asked individually ‘Where’s Dad? Why isn’t he home?’ It struck me they’d never done that before.”
Simon adds, “So now what’s great is that if I go away for a week, they’ll genuinely miss me.
“We’re still very busy. I’m not at every sports game or cultural performance, but I do make prizegivings and we do more together on the weekends.
“We loved Tauranga and it was a great time of life, yet moving to a big city with more opportunities has been really good for us and the kids. They’ve taken to the city like ducks to water.
“It’s exciting for them and there are so many options to see and do, whether it’s the malls or walking our dog Toto up Mount Eden. Our eldest son has joined a youth group, Natalie is doing a fine arts degree. It’s been a complete change of scene.”
For PR maven Natalie, the biggest change – after she acclimatised to her husband being home for longer than 48 hours each week – has been not having to constantly watch the clock.
“I have to remind myself a lot that we’re not in a rush anymore,” she explains. “I was always feeling like, ‘We’ve got to make the best of this time before Dad leaves for Wellington.’
“I’ve had to desensitise myself to not doing that any more. We can sit around and play cards for three hours on a Saturday.”
She admits feeling like it’s the first time the family has truly begun to feel settled.
“I think it took a little while for Simon to get back into the fold of daily family life too – that ease of being around each other all the time,” she reflects. “Initially, I felt he was second-guessing things we did a bit.
“But in time, we all adjusted and when he’s with the kids, he’s super-present – reading them books at night and drawing out more than yes/no answers from them about their day at mealtimes.”
It’s weathering these kinds of challenges with a resilience underpinned by their Christian faith that defines their long-term partnership.
The couple first met as students at Oxford University in the UK. Natalie was 21, studying a post-graduate degree in English literature, while Simon was 27, on sabbatical from his job as a Tauranga prosecutor, studying civil law.
It was love at first sight – Natalie spotted Simon in the halls and told her mum she had her eye on a nice boy that looked “possibly Japanese”.
She recalls, “He had thick black hair, thick-rimmed glasses, was a bit thinner and didn’t dress like a Brit. Mum said, ‘Oh, I don’t want you moving to Japan!’
“Then after I talked to Simon at a formal dinner, I rang Mum and went, ‘So I talked to that guy. Yeah, he’s actually from New Zealand.’ And that was way worse in her mind, for distance.
“Two weeks later, he said, ‘I want you to come back to New Zealand with me.’”
Chimes in Simon, “When you know, you know. No point mucking around! I knew I had to go back because I was bonded to my law firm and owed them money.
“Natalie said it would be insane to tell her parents and they weren’t massively enthusiastic about me, so we waited until Easter,” he laughs.
“One night at Natalie’s flat in Jericho, they came over and I managed to get her dad in a room by himself to ask for his blessing to marry his daughter. It was mortifying but he gave me a hug and we might have both cried a little.”
The whirlwind wedding planning began for the young academics. However, finding clergy who would marry them proved a challenge. But they finally convinced the university vicar to perform the marriage rites in a 1000-year-old stone church – “It was just like The Vicar of Dibley” – a week after sitting their final exams.
The bride wore a gold cocktail dress as she couldn’t afford a proper wedding one. The groom wore an old work suit and the small, student-dominant congregation was a bit “rent-a-crowd”, they admit.
“Beforehand, the Reverend talked to us individually and he was trying to persuade us that it was a really bad idea,” recalls Natalie.
“He was like, ‘Do you know what you’re doing?’ And even though it was so fast it was ridiculous, I felt in my gut that marrying Simon was the right path.”
Adds Simon, “Yeah, we proved him wrong! We should write to him.”
The newly-weds spent their wedding night at Natalie’s parents’ house on a sofa bed in the loft.
Natalie explains, “I remember we had got married, had this dinner and we’re in the back seat of my parents’ car driving home at midnight, and I was thinking, ‘Oh, this is really weird!’”
“It wasn’t memorable for the right reasons at all,” shares Simon, who had told his parents not to come over to the UK because they’d have another wedding celebration in New Zealand. That never happened.
Is that a regret?
“Yeah, definitely,” he says. “They should have come.”
Simon and Natalie concede love won’t always look like a perfect wedding or a perfect life. Instead, it’s imperfect love, forged from laughter, hard work, compromise and forgiveness.
“If you can acknowledge that, you’re onto a winner,” grins Natalie. “It’s been 20 years of lots of listening, lots of laughing and loads of robust arguments!
“We’re very opinionated. Simon is an introvert. I’m an extrovert. Both of us are quite hot-headed. If we stopped arguing, there’d be alarm bells.”
As they marked two decades of life together on July 18, there were some cheeky discussions about their celebration, given that grand gestures can easily fade at this point in a long marriage.
“So to ruin the romance a little bit, I arrived back from New York that morning,” says Simon. “We went out as a family for dinner, and shared lots of food and had a good laugh. It’s awesome that the kids are old enough now to sit around the table and have a fun conversation at a restaurant for a few hours. We love it.”
“There was no plane in the sky pulling a banner saying ‘Marry me again!’” quips Natalie, who always said she’d do a vow renewal ceremony at 20 years, whereas Simon thinks 25 is better.
“We’re not the best at celebrating big occasions,” confirms Natalie. “We don’t go on enough date nights. But the past few years, I’ve come to the conclusion that we have the best time when there’s no expectation – when we’re watching telly together, meeting for a quick drink or going for a walk.
“I think sometimes couples put a lot of pressure on themselves to have these amazing date nights – drinking cocktails until midnight while having deep and meaningful conversations. It never happens!
“That’s why I’ve given up on them – there’s too much pressure. Calling it a date night becomes a kiss of death. Watching The Bear together at home on the couch is better.”
Simon agrees. “No relationship is perfect, but 20 years on, it still feels fresh,” he says, smiling at his wife. “We both value the sacredness around marriage, and the family unit that we honour and fight for. And you do have to fight for it sometimes.
“When we vowed ‘For better or for worse,’ I had complete confidence that Natalie would be there for that, and it’s comforting and reassuring. I feel like life together is only going to get better and the best is yet to come.”