How to Stay Married

The honeymoon

ORIGINALLY, THE HONEYMOON was intended for husbands to initiate their innocent young brides into the delights and mysteries of sex. Today, when most couples have slept together anyway and are already bankrupted by the cost of setting up a house, the whole thing seems a bit of a farce and a needless expense. You probably both need a holiday, however.

When you arrive at your destination, you’re likely to feel a sense of anti-climax. You’re exhausted and suffering from post-champagne depression (a real killer). For months you’ve been coping with squabbles with the caterers, bridesmaids’ tantrums over their head-dresses, parcels arriving every day, the hall littered with packing straw, writer’s cramp from answering letters, traumas with the dressmakers — every moment’s been occupied, you’re wound up like a clock, and suddenly it’s all over and you’ve nothing to do for a fortnight except each other.

For the wife in particular, everything’s suddenly new and unfamiliar, her spongebag and flannel, new pigskin luggage, a whole trousseau of new clothes, dazzling white underwear instead of the usual dirty grey — even her name is new.

The thing to remember is that your wife/husband is probably as nervous and in need of reassurance as you are, like the wild beast surprised in the jungle who’s always supposed to be more frightened than oneself.

SABOTEURS

The first thing to do on arrival at your honeymoon hotel is to search the bedroom for signs of sabotage. Jokey wedding guests may well have instructed the hotel staff to make you an apple pie bed, or wire up the springs of the bed to the hotel fire alarm.

One couple I know reached their hotel to be confronted by the manager waving a telegram from one such joker, saying: ‘My wife has just run off with my best friend, I believe they are booked into your hotel under the assumed name of Mr and Mrs So and So. Could you refuse to let them have the booked room until I arrive?’ Whether you’re heading for the Bahamas or Billericay, the best way to scotch honeymoon saboteurs is not to be coy about your destination. Simply tell everyone you’re staying at the Grand and then book rooms at the Majestic.

Then there’s the problem of getting used to living together. Here again the wife in particular will be worried about keeping up appearances. Before marriage she’s relied on mud packs and rollers and skinfood at night, but now her husband’s going to be with her every moment of the day, and the mystery’s going to be ruined. When’s she going to find time to shave her legs? And she’s always told her husband she’s a natural blonde, and suddenly he’s going to find the home-bleacher in her suitcase.

She’ll soon get used to it all, just as she’ll get used to sitting on the loo and gossiping to her husband while he’s having a bath, or to wandering around with nothing on instead of discreetly changing in the bathroom.

If she’s ashamed of her small breasts and mottled thighs, he’s probably equally self-conscious about his narrow shoulders and hairless chest.

If she’s ashamed …

FIRST THING IN THE MORNING

If you’re worried you look like a road accident in the mornings, sleep with the curtains drawn, and if you’re scared your mouth will taste like a parrot’s cage when he bends over to kiss you, pretend you’re going to the loo, and nip out and clean your teeth.

DON’T PANIC if you get bored, or have a row, or feel claustrophobic or homesick. These are all part of growing-together pains. They won’t establish a behaviour pattern for the next fifty years.

A vital honeymoon ploy is to go somewhere where there is plenty to do. It’s not sacrilege to go to the cinema or watch a soccer match or even look up friends in the district. Take lots of books and sleeping pills.

DON’T PANIC if you get on each other’s nerves. My mother, who’s been happily married to my father for over thirty years, nearly left him on honeymoon because he got a line of doggerel on his mind and repeated it over and over again as they motored through the cornfields of France.

We drove round Norfolk on our honeymoon and I nearly sent my husband insane by exclaiming: ‘How lovely’, every time we passed a village church.

SEX

I’m not going into the intricacies of sexual initiation — there are numerous books on the subject — I would just plead for both parties to be patient, tolerant, appreciative and understanding. Temporary frigidity and impotence are not infrequent occurrences on honeymoon, and not to be taken too seriously.

Take things slowly, you’ve probably got a lifetime in front of you — all that matters at this stage is to get across strongly that you love each other, and you’re not sorry you are married.

DON’T WORRY if, unlike the girl in The Carpetbaggers who wanted to see nothing but ceilings on her honeymoon, you don’t feel like leaping on each other all the time. As I’ve already pointed out, you’re probably exhausted and in no condition for a sexual marathon.

Do take a red towel if you’re a virgin, or likely to have the Curse. It saves embarrassment over the sheets.

Even if you’ve been sleeping together for ages beforehand, and sex was stunning, don’t worry if it goes off for a bit, or feel convinced that it can only work in a clandestine setting. You haven’t been married before, and may just be having initial panic because the stable door is well and truly bolted.

One friend told me he was woken up in the middle of most nights of his honeymoon by his wife staggering groggily out of bed, groping for her clothes and muttering she must get home before her parents woke up.

Eases tensions

It’s a good idea to borrow someone’s cottage in the country for a honeymoon. It’s cheaper than a hotel, and you won’t be worried by the imagined chortlings of chambermaids and hallporters, and you can cook if you get bored.

Don’t worry if he/she doesn’t gaze into your eyes all the time and quote poetry. Most people don’t know enough poetry to last more than a quarter of an hour. A certain amount of alcohol is an excellent idea — it eases tension, breaks down inhibitions. Take the case of the girl in our office who on her arrival with her new husband at the hotel was presented with a bottle of champagne.

‘It was wonderful,’ she told us. ‘We shared a glass each night and made the bottle last the whole fortnight.’

WEDDING PRESENTS

Get your thank-you letters written before the wedding. Once the pre-wedding momentum has been lost, you’ll never get down to them.

Don’t beef too much about the presents your partner’s family or friends have given you, even if they are ghastly. No one likes to be reminded that they are related to, or acquainted with, people of execrable taste. Try and keep a list of who gave you what, so you can bring those cake forks out of hiding when Aunt Agatha comes to tea, and you won’t, as we did, give a particularly hideous vase back to the woman who gave it to us, when later she got married.