Why Won’t My Wife Dress Like a Tart?

Sam Holden is perplexed by women’s double standards when it comes to fashion – but hopes that Lurex catsuit might yet come down the catwalk

Have you ever been out with a man who likes you to dress, well, a little dowdily, shall we say? You know the type. He’s the one who sounds just like your mother when you were a teenager getting ready for a Saturday night out: ‘You can’t go out dressed like THAT!’ he says, as you hobble down the stairs in a sheer top and pencil skirt. You don’t need to be much of a psychologist to know that such a man is a deeply insecure, possessive sort who can’t stand any bloke eyeing up his woman, lest she gets fresh with him by the bins.

I must confess that I’m quite the opposite. Between you and me, I’d love my wife to dress like a complete slut – the sort of woman who would spend all night by the bins. I don’t know what sort of man that makes me (maybe simply someone with a smattering of dormant cuckold fetish). But, the fact remains that in my perfect world, Sally would wear a black rubber mini-skirt, hold-ups and 6-inch f***-me heels every time she went out. Even to Waitrose.

But like any reasonable woman, my wife isn’t the least bit influenced by my preference that she dress like a hooker. Every Christmas and birthdays, I buy her something wildly inappropriate that makes her blush in front of her parents. Last year, it was a particularly ‘showy’ Agent Provocateur corset top that, much to my chagrin, was quickly dispatched to the back of the wardrobe along with all my other offerings.

To my mind, my behaviour is entirely logical. The reason why tarts dress like, er, tarts, is because over centuries of sartorial experimentation, the commercial female has established exactly what sort of clothing appeals to men. There are, naturally, gradations of such style, and I place myself firmly in the ‘classy tart’ category. (Not too classy, though.)

I maintain that while, of course, I fancy my wife regardless (and I do, I really do), in the same way that she likes me wearing a well-tailored navy blue suit and an open-neck shirt, I prefer her in something short, shiny and slinky. (And as my wife has the same vital statistics as Naomi Campbell, she can hardly complain that she doesn’t have the figure for it.)

Until a few months back, there was an impasse in the Holden household, until one day I wiggled the mouse of our computer and the screen burst into life on a webpage full of black PVC leggings. At first, I suspected our six-year-old son was looking at things he shouldn’t – until Sally came into the room and informed me that she was ordering a pair as they were the ‘latest thing’. I felt delighted. And betrayed. ‘But I’ve been trying to get you to wear clothes like that for nine years,’ I moaned. ‘Yes, I know,’ she sheepishly admitted. ‘But they’re in fashion now.’ Fashion. So that’s alright then.

What’s going on here? Women won’t dress like Torture Garden habitués for their beloved menfolk, but they will for the great god of Fashion. So if the deity says that it’s okay for you to wear nipple tassels and a Lurex hobble skirt, you’ll do it, but if your other half asks, then it’s a big N.O. Right? From the male perspective, this is an appalling double standard. And worse still, while you’re about it, you inflict on us terminally unsexy items (like smock tops), simply because they’re in fashion even though the effect of such an item (if you really want to know) is like a kind of inverse Viagra.

I suspect that the reason why so many women conform to a bland level of dressing is because they fear female disapproval. My advice? Don’t listen to those women. They’re just jealous – and trying to bring you down to the dowdy lowest common denominator.

The simple matter is that if you dress a little tartily, you’ll have more sex, have a better-looking man on your arm, get a better job, earn more money and generally not have to worry about your horoscope. You’ll be happier – full stop. And because you’ve got a superior class of bloke, your children will be genetically advantaged. You’ll have enriched the gene pool and furthered the human race. So go on, do your bit for humanity and dress like a tart. Charles Darwin would have approved, the filthy old monkey.

Growing Pains of a Hapless House Husband by Sam Holden (Arrow, £6.99) is out now.

Fashion Wars: She Says

Don’t offer style advice where it’s not wanted, says Angela Buttolph

Scarlett Johansson once claimed to feel self-conscious around 73-year-old film director Woody Allen, because he hates all her clothes: ‘He hates everything I’ve ever worn. He’s extremely fashion-conscious. I would never want to go shopping with him; he’s too particular,’ she says. Oh, Woody, style me next!

There are few areas in life where the patently unqualified are so quick to offer advice. But, when it comes to fashion, every scruffy man in a zip-up jumper, blah jeans and bad brogues is the first to rush in with his opinion: ‘High-waisted jeans look like Mum jeans’; ‘Empire-line dresses make your waist look an inch below your boobs’; ‘It’s probably sexist, but men think women should carry small, ladylike handbags.’

When men start talking about women’s fashion, I get the same feeling I have on a girls’ night out, when our gossipy fun is interrupted by a couple of guys who think they’re about to make our night by chatting us up. Because why else would we be in a bar, unless we wanted to pick up men? And why else would we make an effort with our appearance, unless we wanted to pick up men?

I’ve compiled enough annual ‘best-dressed’ lists to know they bear no relation whatsoever to those lists of the world’s most attractive women in men’s mags. While you might covet the wardrobes of the Olsen twins, Kate Moss and Sarah Jessica Parker, men think the epitome of hotness is Jennifer Aniston, Gisele Bundchen and Jessica Biel. Women who are beautiful but whose wardrobes are, let’s say, not exactly inspirational.

Take Aniston. She wears clothes men can name in a single word: jeans, vest, boots, dress, top. Simple clothes that don’t require a qualification in pattern cutting to describe: ‘tulip skirt with a grown-on waistband and a peplum frill’. Her outfits aren’t themed (goth, boho, disco) apart from Healthy Californian, a look that endlessly appeals to men for its simplicity – it’s clean, fit, sexy. Never mind that Aniston’s wardrobe is boring. Boring to look at, boring to wear (she admitted recently that she still wears clothes from 10 years ago). As my friend, Andy, puts it, ‘Men can’t help having an attraction to that girl-next-door thing.’

In contrast, let’s take my all-out-foxy ensemble of skinny jeans, tuxedo jacket and high, patent platform shoes. It’s quite a catwalky look: leggy and sexy. It gets this review from Andy: ‘Those massively high heels, with big straps, can be intimidating. Worn with skinny jeans and that aggressive jacket [pardon?], any guy would think, “Okay, she doesn’t want to talk to me.”’

Few women would try to defend the outlandish style of the Roisin Murphys or Beth Dittos of this world. But no woman divides the sexes as sharply as Carrie Bradshaw. To us, her looks are inspiring; those prom dresses, the name necklace, the crazy bags. Every ensemble she wears is the sartorial equivalent of a girls’ night out; do what you like, show off a little, have some fun, who cares about men? And men hate that, because they know it’s not about them.

Of course, Carrie was the eternal bachelorette, but she also had Big. In many ways, Big is the ultimate ‘suit’, but his love of Carrie’s kooky style speaks of hidden depths; of being able to appreciate a different aesthetic, of having an interest in current ideas, none of which are suggested by his pinstripes and odd bouffant hair. Also, he’s not threatened by her limelight-stealing outfits. Isn’t that sexier than the man who dates wannabe Hollywood clones in jeans and vests – the female equivalent of background muzak?

For men, every day is a comfortable-shoe day, clothes are to keep you warm/dry and are eventually replenished, rather than dreamed about, hunted down. The fact is, when it comes to fashion, men are simple. My friend, Vicky, has a weekend uniform of tight dresses or skinny jeans, tucked into high boots, and form-fitting tops that would get universal approval from the entire male population. I walked into the pub recently to see her surrounded by a crowd of shouting men that resembled a bad day at the stock exchange. Vicky had vaguely raised the idea of getting some harem pants, and all hell had broken loose.

But then one of the pack turned away in disgust to give my outfit an approving once over, before declaring, uncharacteristically, ‘You look nice.’ I was wearing a fringed scarf, cropped grey silk jacket, heels… And black harem pants (seriously, I’m not making this up).

Ask a guy about padded shoulders and he’ll be vehemently anti: too silly, too retro, too Pat Butcher (men always have a soap-opera reference for any look). But turn up in a foxy tailored dress with structured shoulders and he’ll fall at your feet. What men don’t understand is shoulder pads make your waist and bum look tinier in comparison. Or that high-waisted jeans make your legs look inches longer, or that a boyfriend jacket (dismissed by Andy: ‘too big, looks scruffy’) makes your arms look thinner (roll those sleeves up), and your dress look shorter (genius).

Guess what, women have spent a lifetime working out what flatters our bodies, so leave the fashion decision to us. Otherwise, a word of warning: if you will set yourselves up as experts on womenswear, we will have our revenge, by insisting we can’t go shopping without you.

Fashion Wars: He Says

Men are simple creatures when it comes to fashion, says Nick Curtis.

For me, it’s clogs. Angelina Jolie could be begging me to ravish her, but if she was wearing clogs, I’d simply have to decline. For my friend, John, it’s boot-cut jeans; for Andy, halter-neck tops. All men have inexplicable prejudices against certain items of female apparel that must be uncovered by trial and error. But there are certain basic rules about what men don’t like, as well as myths about what they want women to wear.

A general rule of thumb is to remember that men are simple creatures. We like clothes that do what they say on the packet, like a miniskirt or a pencil skirt. Generally, we hold to the rule that anything that sounds silly – snood, puffball, ra-ra – looks silly. You say bias-cut, we say lopsided. You say drop-waisted, we say ‘exactly’. There are, of course, exceptions to this. We like the parachute dress, with its flamenco-dancer swish and sweep, the bare-shouldered ball gown with extravagant train, the hint of bustle in the clothes of Vivienne Westwood. A bit of sartorial drama is fine, as long as it doesn’t tip into histrionics.

True, men like clothes that emphasise a woman’s waist, hips, legs and (forgive me for being old-fashioned, but I love the word) bust. There’s a reason why tailored, body-conscious clothes continue to sell. But we also like it when you slob around in a jumper and jeans. Or, better yet, one of our shirts (although rugby shirts are out, especially if twinned with pearls). We’d prefer you in an old pair of Doc Martens. We like a woman to look dressed, not designed, decorated or upholstered. We quite like it when you try (we know high heels hurt, but we love what they do to your posture and the shape of your calves). But we hate it when you try too hard. Victoria Beckham scares the bejasus out of us.

There are certain items of female clothing all men love unreservedly. Skinny jeans (as long as you’re not built like Beth Ditto). Shirt-dresses (anything that unbuttons all the way down speaks to something primal in us). Stilettos (see above). Men have liked jumpers, tight or baggy, ever since the advent of the sweater girl in the 1950s. Tailored trousers. Frocks with a V or square-cut neckline, a tight waist and a slightly flared skirt. Trench coats.

Beware, though. It is a minefield out there. We like suits if they make you look like Kim Basinger in Nine 1/2 Weeks, but not if they make you look like Margaret Rutherford in Miss Marple. Although we like jumpers, we’ve hated cardigans for 100 years. Possibly longer. Cardigans remind us of Virginia Woolf, maiden aunts and Hannah Gordon presenting Watercolour Challenge. Hardly paragons of style. We don’t like fur coats, not just for ethical reasons, but because they make us think of trophy wives and gold-diggers.

Some things we just can’t get our heads around. Clam diggers, pedal pushers, toreador pants – whatever you choose to call them, those sawn-off strides leave us cold. Shorts are good, if you’ve got the legs, but culottes never cut it. Hotpants make us queasy outside Kylie videos and the pages of 1970s pornography. We hate the word ‘blouse’, especially if it comes with the words ‘pussy bow’ attached. No woman over 18 looks good in leggings. Oh and, contrary to popular belief, we hate uniforms. That whole nurse/policewoman thing went out with 1970s porn, too. Although, that said, Bar Rafaeli makes us all entertain thoughts of the Israeli Army uniforms.

Finally, to colours. No man will ever find fault with a little black dress or midnight blue or va-va-voom red. We need to be persuaded about canary yellow, electric blue or acid green. We hate baby pink. We like polka dots, gingham and candy stripes. We hate leopard print, PVC and fishnet. But, above all, we hate the thought that we are in any way prescriptive about what our women wear. It’s your decision, honey. After all, you’re dressing to please yourself, not to please us. Right?

‘Help! I’ve Got Pram Envy!’

Terrified of becoming a father for the first time, novelist Nick Duerden found a way to deal with his fears. It was simple: just concentrate on the technology

Before I became a father, other people’s children never really registered. The streets may well have been full of them, but to me they were invisible, a hip-height swarm that passed comfortably beneath eye level. All that changed, though, when my wife became pregnant. Suddenly, a whole new world was opened up to me every time I stepped out of the door; a world dominated by complicated contraptions daubed in bright colours. From then on, it was all about the pram.

Bug-a-who?
Except of course they weren’t called ‘prams’ any more, but ‘buggies’, and they were no longer the massive boneshakers I remembered. No, they were super-sleek, 4x4s in some cases, and almost turbocharged. When we were in the market for our very first pram – sorry, old habit; buggy – all the talk was of something called a Bugaboo. At first, I thought this was a reference to the Destiny’s Child hit but, no, the Bugaboo was the cream of modern buggies, the Mercedes S-Class of the local playground, bright, stylish and intriguingly complicated, like Transformers on wheels, with buttons and switches and levers to collapse them to the size of a matchbox. I wanted one.

But then I saw the price tag and opted for the more reasonable Maclaren instead, my wife reluctantly complying. No offence to those nice people at Maclaren (who make a very nippy pushchair; I’ve no complaints), but I did come to rue my miserliness. Over the next couple of years, neither my wife nor I could ever pass a Bugaboo on the street without experiencing a keen twang of envy towards the smug bastard who was pushing it.

It is a cliché to suggest the only way to fully engage men during our partners’ pregnancies is to dazzle us with technology, but there is an embarrassing element of truth here. I felt a terror of the unknown that only a baby can bring to grown-up lives. Getting into the equipment available for the new arrival was my way of getting a toehold into becoming a father. It was something I could, initially at least, relate to more immediately than the fuzzy scans, the multiple doctors’ appointments and those flat-out terrifying antenatal classes.

So much of imminent parenthood felt alienating: we went out less in order to save more and we estranged our friends further still when we sold our central-London flat for a semi in the suburbs.

But all this baby paraphernalia looked like fun. I’d been missing fun.

Precious cargo
I already had an iPod and a BlackBerry, while at home I was in sole charge of the remote control, so I suppose it’s not surprising I was glad of an opportunity to play with yet more technology. In other words, I focused on the only thing an emotionally confused man could, at that point, get his head around. My wife didn’t hide her disappointment at such childlike behaviour, but then getting to grips with the looming parenthood was proving easier for her than it was for me. She wanted me to catch up, and quick.

This is not something I am proud of, incidentally, but I wasn’t the only male to harbour such obsessions. A couple of acquaintances with kids confessed that they, too, had initially been drawn to the technology – the space-age steriliser, the iPod-aping baby monitors – much more quickly than they had the concept of fatherhood. (Even John Lewis has recognised this and started to offer dads-to-be a service called Buggy Consultation, with invitations to ‘test drive the latest models’. Note the male-friendly terminology.)

The first time I took my tiny daughter Amaya out for a spin was a momentous occasion. She was strapped into our sensible buggy on a crisp January day, my wife instinctively allowing me control of it much as my mother had done, years before, with the trolley in Safeway. It handled well, took corners at a clip and I liked it. Soon its handlebars, initially so alien at my fingertips, felt like a part of me. As – in an overwhelming way I’d never expected – did the precious, tiny cargo out front.

Nick Duerden is the author of The Reluctant Fathers’ Club (£10.99, Short Books)

Real Men Don’t Get Ill

Rosie Green’s other half thinks his Herculean powers of denial make him immune to the common cold – but a 24/7 cough is enough to test even the strongest marriage

There are three of us in this marriage. Me, Alpha Male and his cough. It has become our constant companion. The soundtrack to our lives. Romantic meals, picnics in the park, lattes on a Sunday morning. All of them punctuated by anything from a subtle throat clearing to a full on emphysema-style consumption fit (at about 500 decibels). And it’s been going on forever. Started way back when Prince William still had a full head of hair.

Do I feel sympathy? Do I bugger. I tut, I pull a face like Heather Mills being served a KFC bucket and I hate myself for it. I mean, I know I agreed to ‘in sickness and in health’, but I didn’t think it would become pertinent quite so soon.

I scowl when I hear him in the shower. I recoil in the bedroom. I harbour murderous thoughts. In short, I am evil. Where is my sympathy? Generally, I aspire to be a kindly, empathetic person (think Florence Nightingale with better shoes) and, when it’s my girlfriends, I have endless patience, a ready smile and a whole host of magazine-gleaned remedies. But when it comes to my beloved, I’ve got about 24 hours until compassion withers like a salted slug.

So why is this? Maybe it’s because he’s just not interested in my many, many constructive suggestions (his eyes glaze over when I talk about Harley St doctors, tribal remedies or alcohol abstinence). Or maybe it’s Darwinian. You want your partner to be strong. Any moaning is a sign of weakness or self-indulgence (it works both ways – AM says that when I talk about feeling bloated, he wants to smack his head on the table and shout, ‘You just ate too much!’). Basically, any protracted condition (twitching eye, tennis elbow, creaky knees) that renders your partner incapacitated is likely to get your back up.

My colleague, L, reckons it’s about a weird feeling of responsibility; like it’s your job to fix them (FYI: her husband’s cough was so bad, she knew when he was nearly home because she could hear him hacking down the street). Most men don’t want to be fixed, of course. AM has to be dying to even pop a Nurofen, but still I insist on him imbibing colossal quantities of friendly bacteria drinks and omega oils, plus a whole smorgasbord of vitamins. My friend, M, has her husband on a daily dose of vitamin C (for his allergies), selenium (good for sperm), zinc (ditto) and milk thistle to calm his wind (!!!). He complains he rattles when he walks.

When AM needed to stop three times on one car journey for a pee (welcome back to Welcome Break!), I booked him an appointment at the doctor. I met him there with the children (what can I say, I was bored on maternity leave, it was an outing). He had cycled from work and was sporting three-day-old kit and some serious perspiration. He went in joyous and came out white as a sheet. He was ominously silent until we got outside and then, in a wild mix of gesticulations and expletives, it became apparent he’d had to remove his shorts, assume the foetal position and attempt to ‘relax’, while the young doctor had a probe around his deeper recesses. I didn’t know who to feel more sorry for, him or the doctor. He never did ring for the results of course (I tried, but they wouldn’t divulge), so the whole exercise was pointless. I have never insisted on a doctor’s visit again.

This whole situation makes me worry about old age, though. I once had visions of us gardening, gently bickering over whose turn it was to make the tea, but generally leading a harmonious, sunlit life. Now I fear I’ll be stewing in a darkened room, obsessing over his bronchial wheeze/bulbous toe/possible gout, and furiously typing his symptoms into NHS Direct. Meanwhile, he’ll be merrily hacking away over the sprouting broccoli.

It’s Me – Or Her!

Author Maggie Alderson laments the heartache that ensues when your man hates your best friend – which inevitably leads to a juggling of loyalties

I say, I say, I say, my wife’s mother went on holiday. Jamaica? No, she went of her own accord… Boo-boom. Yawn. We’ve all heard it a million times, just one of the extensive canon of clichéd (and misogynistic) mother-in-law jokes.

While everyone knows how hard it is when your partner doesn’t get on with your family, what if Bernard Manning had swapped the mother-in-law riff with this: ‘Take my wife’s best friend… No, please, take her!’? I suspect a lot of men would have laughed just as loudly – but for a woman, conflict between the man they love and their best friend, the woman they tell everything, can be every bit as upsetting.

She’s the woman we talk to about ‘him indoors’. He knows we tell our best friends just about everything. He strongly suspects she knows how big his willy is, whether he’s adequate in the foreplay department and how often and where he likes to ‘do it’. Which she does, of course. We, on the other hand, know that everything he tells his friends about our sex lives is complete fiction.

Mostly, though, men seem able to zone out of the ‘he-knows-she-knows’ cringe, just as they can close their ears when we start squealing with friends about whether it’s all right to fancy Zac Efron, now he’s 21. We do the same when it comes to filtering out boxing and snooker talk (at least I do; it might be fishing tackle and the Grand Prix in your house). It’s part of the ‘Me, shed – You, shoe shop’ understanding that’s the basis of successful relationships between men and women.

But there are some men who seem unable to rise above the idea of the best friend being inside the secret zone of silence. It gets to them at some deep-seated level, though they would say the problem isn’t them, but the abject ghastliness of your best friend. And that’s where the conflict really begins – the one that makes you piggy-in-the-middle.

When I was in my twenties, a boyfriend developed an irrational, virtual fatwa against my best friend. It began with low-level eye rolling every time I mentioned I was going to see her and developed into him flatly refusing to go to any event she’d organised. And it became harder and harder to come up with excuses as to why he wouldn’t be joining us; and when he started insisting that she couldn’t come to our house, I knew I had a problem.

Juggling my loyalties became all-consuming. I remember finding it really hurtful when he said horrible things about her. I remember him expressing a catty comment about how she’d gained weight; another time he said that she was becoming increasingly desperate to find a man. I once came home with a new outfit and he said, ‘I suppose she made you waste your money on that.’

The insults sting because you love her and don’t want to hear her being dissed – but also because they reflect on you. Is there something wrong with you for liking this ‘awful person’? This internal debate can make you feel a little crazy. How can the woman you love for her wit, kindness, style and empathy, incite such hostility in the man you love for his wit, kindness, style and empathy (and exquisite foreplay)?

What makes this situation really difficult is the fact that the reason a man dislikes his partner’s best friend is not that he loathes her politics, her football team or her tone of voice. It’s because he feels threatened. Girlfriend-haters will say they don’t like how you act when you’re with her. They’ll say she makes you silly/coarse/pretentious/snobby. But what they really mean is they don’t like the idea that sometimes you prefer her company. And sometimes it’s because she’s single and he thinks she might encourage you to meet other men. Your friend is also a reminder that there are things about you that he doesn’t understand – that you have needs he can’t fulfil. But instead of being pleased that he’s off the hook, because you have someone to cover these areas, it make him feel inadequate. In short, she makes him feel inadequate.

Women who feel ‘less than’, in the way, blame themselves, retreat into their shells (and large bars of chocolate), while men in the same situation lash out, turning nasty and aggressive. So what might seem a specific issue with one person – who happens to be your best friend – might actually be a symptom of a bigger problem with your man.

Every woman needs the kind of support, love and laughter that can only come from a girlfriend and if a man can’t accept that, you might feel you’re forced to make a choice. And when push came to shove, I chose the friend. Then when I met my new partner, I made damn sure he loved her as much as I do!

Maggie Alderson’s How to Break Your Own Heart (Penguin, £6.99) is out.

Love, Honour & Ignore

Juggling a job, childcare and housework can be tricky, says Jenny Tucker – for her husband

My husband has glitter in his hair, porridge stuck to his lapel, the smell of Flash Fresh Lemon on his fingertips and a document he hasn’t had time to read under his arm. He is walking around in this zesty, sparkly disarray because, this weekend, I have expected him to decorate a birthday card with our six-year-old, make breakfast, wipe the kitchen floor and then go back to his office, where he will work his exhausted butt off to bring home a crust.

If I’m honest, I feel a bit sorry for him. But these are modern times and men are expected to pull their weight when it comes to being the perfect alpha male (which, incidentally, is now a quirky mix of hunter man and nurturing woman). But, hold on, while he’s fine-tuning his feminine side, have I forgotten my obligations to love, cherish and prepare a home-cooked meal? Now I come to think of it, when was the last time I acted like a wife?

I regularly throw a plate of pesto pasta in front of him, before vanishing out of the door to Pilates, so it’s not like I neglect him completely. But compare that with my parents’ relationship back in the day and my husband has a pretty raw deal. Every morning, my mum got up at 7am to polish Dad’s shoes and make him bacon and eggs before he set off for work. In contrast, my husband gets a cooked breakfast on Christmas morning. If he ever asked me to polish his shoes, I’d throw them at him.

But is this something I should be proud of? My wifely skills are so rusty that, when I opened the bedroom curtains the other day, a cobweb fell on my face. Just as I was balanced on the window ledge with a feather duster, my best friend phoned. I told her what I was doing. ‘Now get down and stop being silly,’ she said. ‘That’s a job for someone who’s paid on an hourly basis.’

She’s right in a way. I work, as well as put in the majority of the childcare, so there’s no reason I should start donning a pinny and pushing a hostess trolley around, but would it be so wrong if I prioritised my husband sometimes? Somehow, feminism has evolved from being liberating into a power struggle, making us feel it’s demeaning to iron our husband’s shirts. One of the worst things I’ve heard was a friend boasting that she separates her husband’s washing from hers. ‘I work hard,’ she growled. ‘Why should I clean his stuff? I’m not his servant!’

Yet if my husband was as blatantly resentful towards me, I’d be considering divorce. It seems cruel and pointless. And not the stuff that happy marriages are made of. One couple I know still seem entranced with each other after 15 years. Even though they both work, she cooks, cleans, smiles a lot and gives him plenty of affection. For his part, he cooks, cleans, plays with their kids a lot and recently bought her an enviable pair of diamond earrings for their anniversary. I suppose it comes down to the fact they don’t mind looking after each other. Unlike Washing Regulator Friend, who appears to be in competition with her partner.

And so I ask my husband if I make a good wife. ‘Oh, I’ve had better,’ he says (hilariously). I tell him to be serious. Do I meet the traditional requirements of a wife? He ponders for some time. ‘You cook lovely dinners, the house is usually tidy and I think you’re sexy. You could try letting me watch a bit more football, though.’

And so, in the spirit of becoming just a teeny bit more wifely, I have made a promise to myself that I will cook a couple of times a week. I might even get the duster out now and again. And I will never, ever separate his dirty socks from mine.

I still draw the line at polishing his shoes, though.