How to Stay Married

Coming unstuck

EVERYONE CAN MAKE a mistake, and there’s no point in a couple sticking together if they’re utterly miserable, even for the sake of the children, who would be much happier with one contented parent than two continually at war. Do try and distinguish, however, between a temporary bad patch, which all marriages go through, and a permanent rift. Divorce is very unpleasant and very expensive. A great deal of mud-slinging and bitterness will inevitably occur, and there’s the nasty business of dividing friends and property.

So before you run off, whether it’s with someone or not, make absolutely sure you want to go. Your partner may or may not take you back afterwards, and the longer you stay away the more difficult it will be to start again.

Another thing to remember is that it’s very cold outside the matrimonial cage. One beautiful woman I know recently left her husband because she was bored and unhappy. She was back within six months.

When she was safely married, she had a wonderful time, having numerous affaires, being hotly pursued by hordes of men (for nothing is more attractive to a man than a bored, beautiful but safely married woman — all fun and no fear). Once she had left her husband the men who had been swarming round her weren’t nearly so anxious to declare themselves, and she soon found it was back to single girl status with all the nagging worries of who was going to take her out the next night.

Sometimes an affaire can ventilate a marriage and make a couple appreciate each other more:

Another friend of mine became so infatuated with her lover that she left her husband. Next morning she and her lover went along to the lover’s solicitor, who asked her if there was anything detrimental they could use against her husband in the divorce. Was he cruel? Did he neglect her? Did he have affaires with other women or beat her up?

She thought for a minute and then burst into tears, saying she couldn’t think of anything wrong with him. She rushed out of the solicitor’s office and went back to her husband, whom to her amazement she found absolutely devastated by her departure. They have been happily married ever since.