How to Stay Married

‘If there’s one thing I can’t stand …’

CHANGING PEOPLE

YOU SHOULDN’T GO into marriage expecting to change people. Once a bumbler always a bumbler, once a rake always a rake (a gay eye isn’t likely to be doused by marriage). Once a slut — although she may make heroic and semi-successful attempts to improve — always a slut. When we were first married, my husband used to dream of the day I stopped work, like the Three Sisters yearning for Moscow: ‘The house will be tidy, we shall make love every morning, and at last I shall be given breakfast.’

Well, I stopped work, and chaos reigned very much as usual. It’s a case of plus ça change, I’m afraid.

Your only hope is that by making people happier and more secure they may realise the potential inside them and develop into brilliant businessmen, marvellous lovers, superb cooks, or alas, even bores. And remember, the wife who nags her husband on to making a fortune won’t see nearly so much of him. He’ll be in the office from morn until night. She can’t have it both ways.

DIFFERING TASTES

Certain things are bound to grate. He may have a passion for flying ducks and Peter Scott and she may go a bundle on coloured plastic bulrushes and a chiming doorbell.

The wife may also use certain expressions like ‘Pleased to meet you,’ which irritate her husband to death; or he may say ‘What a generous portion’ every time she puts his food in front of him.

Now is the time to strike. If you say you can’t stand something in the first flush of love, your partner probably won’t mind and will do something about it. If, after ten years, you suddenly tell your husband it drives you mad every time he says: ‘Sit ye down’ when guests arrive, he’ll be deeply offended, and ask you why you didn’t complain before.

IRRITATING HABITS

Everyone has some irritating habits — the only thing to do when your partner draws your attention to them is to swallow your pride and be grateful, because they may well have been irritating everyone else as well.

I have given up smoking and eating apples in bed, or cooking in my fur coat, and I try not to drench the butter dish with marmalade. My husband no longer spends a quarter of an hour each morning clearing the frog out of his throat, and if he still picks his nose, he does it behind a newspaper.

There are bound to be areas in your marriage where you are diametrically opposed. Compromise is the only answer. I’m cold blooded, my husband is hot blooded. I sleep with six blankets, he sleeps half out of the bed.

I like arriving late for parties so I can make an entrance, he likes arriving on the dot because he hates missing valuable drinking time. I can’t count the number of quiet cigarettes we’ve had in the car, waiting for a decent time to arrive.

Don’t worry too much that habits which irritate you now will get more and more on your nerves. My tame psychiatrist again told me: ‘Those quirks in one’s marriage partner which annoy one in early days often become in later years the most lovable traits.’