How to Stay Married (2 page)

IT IS EXTREMELY
easy to get married – it costs £4.5s. and takes two days to get a licence. It is much harder to stay married.

My only qualifications for writing a book on the subject are that I have had the example of parents who have lived in harmony for nearly forty years, and I myself am still married extremely happily after eight years. In eight years, of course, we’ve had marvellous patches and patches so bad that they rocked our marriage to its foundations, but I’ve come to realise that if you can cling on like a barnacle during the bad patches, your marriage will survive and in all probability be strengthened.

Anyone else’s marriage is a dark unexplored continent, and although I have observed far too many of my friends going swiftly in and out of wedlock, I can only guess at what it was that broke the marriage up, Since the word got around that I was writing this book, my task has been made doubly difficult by the fact that married couples either sidled away or started behaving ostentatiously well, whenever I came into the room.

One of the great comforts of my own marriage, however, has been that my husband was married before, knew the ropes, and during any really black period, when I was all for opting out and packing my bags, would reassure me that such black periods were to be expected in marriage, and it had been far worse for him the first time round.

Similarly I hope that by pointing out some of the disasters and problems that beset us and how we weathered them, it may reassure other people either married or contemplating marriage.

THE WEDDING

THIS IS BLAST
off – the day you (or rather your mother) have been waiting for all your life. It’ll pass in a dream and afterwards you won’t remember a thing about it. It helps, however, if you both turn up. Dope yourself with tranquillisers by all means, but watch the champagne later: drugs mixed with drink often put you out like a light. And don’t forget to take the price tags off your new shoes, they’ll show when you kneel down in church.

Brides:
don’t be disappointed if you don’t look your best, far more likely you’ll be scarlet in the face and piggy-eyed from lack of sleep.

Bridegrooms:
remember to look round and smile as your bride comes up the aisle. She’ll be too busy coping with her bouquet and veil to notice, but it will impress those armies of guests lined up on either side of the church.

Coming down the aisle’s more tricky – you never know where to look, that radiant smile can easily set into a rictus grin, and there’s bound to be one guest you know too well, whose eye you want to avoid (like Tallulah Bankhead’s remark about one couple coming down the aisle: ‘I’ve had them both and they were lousy!’).

If you look solemn, people will think you’re having second thoughts. Best policy is to settle for a cool smirk with your eyes on the door of the church.

Be careful what hymns you choose. People like a good bellow at a wedding, so don’t choose anything obscure. Equally, be careful of hymns with double meanings like ‘Jesu – the very thought of thee’, which will make everyone giggle and spoil the dignity and repose of the occasion.

THE RECEPTION

First there’s the line-up, and you’ll get so tired of shaking hands, trying to remember faces and gushing like an oil well, you’ll begin to have a real sympathy with the Royal Family.

Don’t worry when you circulate among the guests afterwards if none of them will speak to you. They’ll all feel you’re far too important to waste time talking to them, and you’ll wander round like a couple of wraiths.

If you must make speeches, keep them short. Thank everyone in sight, and tell one stunning joke to convince your in-laws you do have a sense of humour after all. Never let the best man either speak or read the telegrams, unless he’s very funny.

Don’t flirt with exes. One girl I know, whose husband spent the reception playing ‘do you remember’ with an old girlfriend, refused to go on the honeymoon.

Try not to get drunk – you may feel like it – but it will cause recriminations later.

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.

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.