GILES’S SEVEN POINT PLAN FOR A STRONG AND STABLE MARRIAGE

1. Have parents who didn’t split up. You are then statistically far less likely to do so yourself.
2. Think of the pastoral care. If, like the late John Noakes, I was found confused and sheltering in a storm drain in Majorca, I know Mary would strain every sinew to locate me.
3. Don’t have unrealistic expectations. I believe too high a premium is set on the nebulous idea of personal happiness. Once this aspiration is removed, the marriage stands a better chance of not being derailed.
4. Because my brain cells are deteriorating more quickly than Mary’s there’s an obvious incentive to stay married to her. Vide Iris Murdoch and John Bayley.
5. Don’t have a mistress. Luckily I don’t have the income stream to meet the expectations for flowers and champagne a mistress would require.
6. Mary’s memory bank. She can remember the details of stories and the points of them whereas I tend to tell the punchlines first without the build-up. I have become content to merely trigger Mary, like a human jukebox, to tell the relevant anecdote while I sit back. The temptation to tell the punchline two thirds of the way through still allows me to sabotage the occasional performance.
7. Finally – the mantra ‘I’ve started so I’ll finish’, as heard on Mastermind, has always seemed to me a powerful bulwark against divorce.