Has Matt Rudd discovered the secret to a happy marriage?

Acceptance is the final stage of marriage, writes Matt Rudd. Photo / 123RF

A spoonful of forbearance helps the divorce rate go down.

At some point over the past few months something changed about the way Harriet eats yoghurt. Now, every time she has breakfast, she leaves a small blob of Yeo Valley in the corner of her mouth. Nobody knows exactly when this started happening, or why. It might be age related — perhaps her facial muscles have started to deteriorate. It might be psychological, a subconscious pandemic urge to store food. Or maybe it's a more joyful thing. Maybe she's reached a point in life where she is no longer subject to the shallow aesthetics of society. If she wants to have a small blob of yoghurt in the corner of her mouth, she can.

It does make breakfast conversation difficult, though. She'll be talking about something important and I won't be concentrating because of the blob. Eventually I will interrupt the important thing and indicate that it has happened again, and she'll laugh and say: "Imagine what I'll be like when I'm 80." Imagine.

In related news, my favourite pair of pants has a plum-sized hole in the peritoneal area and sometimes I wear socks in bed. Harriet's favourite nightshirt is fashioned from a thick, floral terry-towelling fabric, the sort a 1970s granny would use to keep a teapot cosy. During our twenties I would never have worn socks in bed and she would never have worn a tea cosy, but those days are long gone. Bedtime is no longer a performance. We can be our real selves. That's what I'll tell the marriage counsellor, anyway.

I leave coins all about the house. Harriet hides the shopping bags nowhere about the house. I never shake the dog blanket properly. She never closes internet tabs properly. I have a white nose hair. She likes Coldplay. I never want to go out. She always wants to go out. I'm tired when she isn't. She's tired when I'm not. When was the last time I gave her a back massage? When was the last time she made me a cup of tea?

In unrelated news, the number of searches for the divorce page on the Citizens Advice website has increased by more than 25 per cent since the same time last year. Lawyers are warning of/crossing fingers for a divorce boom. The reason for this is both obvious and ridiculous. Thanks to the global travels of a tenacious microscopic bug, married couples have been fortunate enough to spend considerable amounts of time in each other's company over these past restricted months. And it turns out that, for a lot of those couples, this is a bad thing.

I have been married for 17 years (you get less for murder, boom boom). For the first decade or so I would have told anyone who asked that the secret to a happy marriage was absence. A work trip here, a weekend away there. Preferably to somewhere horrible with people you don't like very much. A team-bonding course at a youth hostel on the outskirts of Swindon, for example. A change is as good as a rest. Abscesses make the heart grow fonder. (I really had a terrible time in Swindon.)

This, as all those people googling "Are divorce lawyers still working during lockdown?" have found out, is not a sustainable strategy. In the very long run, or during a pandemic, you're going to have to find a way to get along with your loved one without going to Swindon. A wise old woman once told me the thing to do was for a couple to make a list of everything that irritates them about each other, then talk through that list. Don't do this — it doesn't work. Instead, make the list and then just get over it. Move on.

Two people sharing the relentlessly mundane process of getting older have to be able to give ground. The art is in the losing, not the winning. Acceptance is the final stage of marriage. I say this as a man who still leaves coins all about the house with a wife who still hides the shopping bags all about the house. But we're OK with these things, aren't we, darling? Darling? What are you doing on the Citizens Advice website? Please close the tab properly when you've finished.

On which note, happy anniversary to my parents, who have been cooped up with each other for the whole of this year and for a mere 49 years before that.

Written by: Matt Rudd
© The Times of London