‘In a happy marriage the wife must be adored’

Recent reports reveal half of all marriages will ultimately end. Novelist Polly Williams says that marriages are more than a clump of statistics, and where there are human beings, there is always hope

First up, let’s get a few things straight before you write me off as a smug married and turn the page. The only photo of me and my husband smooching cheek to cheek on a dance floor in the manner of the Obamas was taken on our wedding day, five years ago. Last night we rowed about who scorched his expresso maker. (He accused me and he is probably right, but, hell, I fought my corner anyway.)

We have three small children who regularly smear snot and worse all over my clothes, which means I’m usually more Gruffalo than yummy mummy. Oh, yes, and we had sex, not once or twice last week, but precisely no times! So there you go!

Taking marriage tips from me is a bit like taking dieting tips from an exercise-phobic aunt with a mouth full of ice cream. Still, I think, in the grand scheme of divorces and bust-ups, we’re doing rather well. We survived a pregnancy five months into a new relationship, a premature baby, a redundancy, and hundreds of those small, erosive battles (usually involving sick children, childcare or builders) that most working parents face on a daily basis. And yes, we still love each other. We’re one of the lucky couples.

According to recent research, a quarter of relationships will end within six years. (We’re in our seventh now – phew!) Half will end in 25 years. (Some way to go, then.) As ever, there are certain factors that put couples at a statistical disadvantage: if the husband is more than nine years older than his wife; if couples have children before getting married; if the spouses have divorced parents; if partners are on their second or third marriage; if one partner smokes; and, worryingly, if the wife is a heavier drinker than her husband. (Watch those units, girls.)

And one of 
the major factors in keeping a couple together? Money, and lots of it. (We don’t need a survey to tell us that, thanks.) It’s hard not to feel a bit grim about all this information. Too many of us have to check too many boxes, but I remain optimistic. Marriages are about human beings, rather than a tangled clump of statistics, and where there are human beings – as well as flowers, feet rubbed after a hard day at work and stolen nookie when the baby sleeps – there is always hope. Also I do sometimes wonder if perhaps some marriages just aren’t meant to be, and some are.

My cynical 20-something self – I’m a child of divorced parents – would have never have believed I’d be a wife of five years, or, for that matter, that I’d ever pen a novel called How To Be Married. That I have three kids and am writing novels at all is in no small part down to my husband, who is, I now realise, one of The Good Ones. After a series of never-going-anywhere relationships I lucked out – a lot of it is luck, no? We met randomly in a London club, me unbecomingly drunk, him wearing truly terrible tartan trousers which, as luck would have it, I didn’t notice and dismiss him for because of my wine-goggles. (Those units certainly come in handy in the early days.)

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why our relationship worked as opposed to disseminating messily in our faces, especially after we discovered I was pregnant. But I think I can distil it into a few key things; making each other laugh even after a barnstorming row; him being the one who says sorry first because, childishly, I still can’t quite manage it; a fairly equal partnership when it comes to kids and domestics; and lastly – and I notice this in friends’ ‘happy’ marriages too (quote marks because you never quite know, do you?) – making me feel adored, even at my least adorable.

If I had to reduce a happy marriage to one thing, it’d be this: the wife needs to be the adored, the husband the adorer. An old-fashioned dynamic, maybe, but a harmonious one. Our smoochy dance moves really could do with some practise though.

•    Polly Williams’ new book, How To Be Married (Headline Review, £6.99) is out now.