London - To my mind, it’s a funny thing to do: to question 88 married couples, ask if they’re bored in their relationship and then, when the majority say yes, conclude that boredom can kill off a marriage.
Yet that’s what a team of Canadian academics did recently - and when their findings were revealed , they were treated as dramatic evidence that boredom “is the major obstacle to lasting love”.
To which I say, what nonsense! Had the researchers talked to 88 divorced people and found that a huge percentage of them said they’d got divorced because they’d been bored stiff by their partners, then fine. But no, they interviewed people who’d stayed together, which rather suggests that boredom is less of a deal-breaker, more of a pre-requisite for a long-lasting relationship.
As the great Edwardian actress, Mrs Patrick Campbell, said: “Marriage is the longing for the deep, deep peace of the double bed after the hurly-burly of the chaise longue.”
It’s one thing envying the likes of Liz Taylor and Richard Burton their tempestuous love lives, but no one really wants to be throwing plates, flouncing out of parties and having drunken screaming matches over dinner for longer than the first year of marriage, if that.
And let’s not forget that the Taylor/Burton marriage got so exciting that however many times they split up and came back together, they broke up in the end. It was all just too exhausting... and preoccupying.
Because that’s the trouble with an “exciting” marriage. It can become the centre of your world.
Each of you is so busy worrying that the other might have it off with the person they’re flirting with at dinner, or throwing a tantrum because you forgot their birthday, or flinging soup in your face because you forgot the one thing they couldn’t bear was minestrone, that neither of you has time for the real pleasure of life - which is, simply: getting on with things.
How can you have a fulfilling career or enjoy bringing up the children if day and night you’re panicking that he might have stamped on all your carefully planted roses in a rage or, perhaps worse, she’s booked you in for a course of exhausting tango lessons for the rest of the year?
As an agony aunt for 35 years, people used to write to me saying that their marriages had gone stale, and could I think of ways to “spice it up”.
Other agony aunts would recommend he booked her on a surprise flight to Venice or that she apply some new perfume, open the door to him in her negligee and seduce him over that ubiquitous candle-lit dinner.
But to me, that never seemed very good advice. After all, maybe she wouldn’t want to go to Venice, and maybe she’d feel it was too expensive, or maybe he’d forgotten they had the family coming for Sunday lunch.
As for the negligee trick, what if poor old hubby were incredibly tired and wanted to put his feet up and watch Match Of The Day?
I remember seeing a couple on a US self-help show asking how they could ignite the flames that had died in their marriage and I winced as the TV sex therapists suggesting they try mirrors, fantasising, role play ... and excruciating positions.
I wanted to shout: “Forget about igniting the flames! Flames are nasty, dangerous things that’ll burn your house down. Concentrate instead on those lovely cosy embers. Why don’t you just shove in a couple of potatoes and warm your hands at the coals?”
Apparently, a lot of the bored partners in this latest study complained about the lack of fun, the dearth of conversation and the absence of romance. Several felt they were in their partner’s shadows.
It sounds to me as if the key to their unhappiness is the fact they are constantly looking to their partner to provide all the entertainment. No fun in a relationship? Then create it. No conversation? Start one. No romance? Do something about it. If you feel you’re in someone’s shadow, step out of it and create your own.
Obviously, none of us wants to be married to someone who is such a crashing bore that every time they open their mouths we want to scream, or who turns on the telly every night at 6pm and watches right through until 11pm.
But that’s what I call an utterly selfish person who has no right to stay married, rather than a bore.
On the whole, most of us want marriage to be something from which we can go out and to which we can return, like one of those balls on a piece of elastic fixed to a post.
It’s nice to be able to dance around, being ourselves, but always attached to something solid, even if it is just a grey piece of vertical metal.
Similarly, we can play that role for our partners when they want to be creative and do their own thing, whether it’s playing cricket, trainspotting or going on a shopping spree. Marriage should not be a maelstrom of corrosive rows, change and adrenaline rushes, but, rather, a haven of peace and calm. And most of us look for someone steady, kind, companionable, warm, funny and reliable.
But the peace-lovers often aren’t very exciting and scintillating, constantly amusing and sexy. And it would be pretty exhausting, to be honest, if they were.
I was struck by fashion editor Felicity Green’s sad statement on Desert Island Discs last month about the death of Geoffrey, her husband of 40 years. “It wasn’t that I missed someone to do things with,” she said. “I missed someone to do nothing with.”
And that’s what a married partner offers: someone just to “be there”. Someone to walk with in silence. Someone to smile at you as you come in from the garden.
Someone to say: “Cuppa tea?” as they put the kettle on. Someone to roll your eyes at during a party when you’ve had enough and want to go. Someone to let the cat in when he scratches at the door, and someone to nod in agreement when you look out of the window at the rain and say: “Well. Summer’s over.” Someone to listen.
One of the things that prevents some of us getting wildly enthusiastic about Kate and Wills’ marriage is that it looks as if their romance is just a tad humdrum.
A bit of us still longs for the fireworks of Charles and Diana - temperamental old bachelor, prone to rages and in love with his mistress, marries demure virgin beset with emotional problems. That marriage was exciting. And look what happened to it.
Let’s hope no one wishes on Kate and Wills the old Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.”
No, what they should hope for is trust, love, tranquillity and honesty. And if, on occasion, that gets a bit boring, then they should thank their lucky stars. - Daily Mail