We were surrounded by influences and interests that came between Stephen and me. The nurse who became his wife was seeking to undermine me, and there were wider influences, too, following the runaway success of 'A Brief History of Time.'
Intellectually, Stephen was a towering giant. Bodily, he was as helpless as a newborn. The functions I fulfilled were all maternal rather than marital.
I couldn't go off and leave Stephen. Coals of fire would have been heaped on my head if I had.
That the Hawkings were eccentric, even odd, was well known. That they were aloof, convinced of their own intellectual superiority over the rest of the human race, was also widely recognized in St. Albans, where they were regarded with a suspicion and awe.
The truth was, there were four partners in our marriage. Stephen and me, motor neurone disease, and physics. If you took out motor neurone disease, you are still left with physics.
My generation of women was the last for whom marriage and a family were the goal.
To me, Stephen was my husband and the father of my children; one does not say to one's husband, 'Oh, you're so clever! I must worship the ground under your feet, or in this case, wheels.'
I had scarcely met Stephen, and then one Saturday I met some old friends for coffee, and they were saying, 'Gosh it's terrible about Stephen, isn't it?' They told me that he had been in St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London having horrible tests and then had been diagnosed with an atypical form of a rare disease - motor neurone disease.
Being Stephen's carer was such a struggle, and it's a lonely job looking after a disabled person. Thinking back, I honestly wonder how I got through it.
I did the first proofreading of 'A Brief History of Time,' and when it came to writing my memoir, I consulted many scientific friends so that, contrary to what many critics supposed and were churlish enough to voice, I did actually write the scientific sections myself.
I had to be steadfast in my Christian beliefs, seeking strength from them.
When Stephen was first diagnosed, we weren't actually going out together, but I was already falling in love with him. He had beautiful eyes and this amazing sense of humour, so we were always laughing.
We would look up at the night sky together, and although Stephen wasn't actually very good at detecting constellations, he would tell me about the expanding universe and the possibility of it contracting again and describe a star collapsing in on itself to form a black hole in a way that was quite easy to understand.
I understood Stephen's point of view because if you had been given a death sentence at the age of 21, would you find it easy to believe in a loving God? Also, Stephen's work was taking him into the depths of the universe, and it was, I thought, fairly understandable that there wasn't much room for God in his equations.
I loved Stephen so much that nothing could deter me from wanting to marry him.
I felt very committed to Stephen, and I didn't think he could manage without me. I wanted him to carry on doing his amazing work, and I wanted the children to have a stable family behind them - so we just carried on.
I don't think of my life as having two marriages; I think of it as a continuum.
The gas man came one day, and he said, 'What does your husband do?' so I told him, and he said, 'What's the use of that?' He had a point, but on the other hand, I firmly believed in Stephen and his brilliance. I encouraged him to popularise his science just because the gas man had been so insulting.
I suppose I was still optimistic and unrealistic, and I just hoped we could keep going as we were. But no. That was not good enough for Stephen, so off he went. Those were hard times. They really were. But then, I suppose, divorce is always hard.
When I was playing with the children, I felt I ought to be working, and when I was working, I felt I ought to be playing with the children.
