Page 23 of Seven Rules for a Perfect Marriage

He gets up and takes a packet of crisps out of the cupboard, pulling out a handful and chewing meditatively. ‘Do you ever worry that the rules don’t work?’

‘What?’

‘The Seven Rules. I mean, you said yourself, we’re not doing so well, and we wrote the rules, so I guess I was just wondering—’

‘Are you kidding?’ This is surely not the time for Jack to get on his high horse about the account and the rules. We hold eye contact, neither of us willing to be the one to push this into an argument. We’ve never had a sensible discussion about the rules, because sometimes he laughs at them, sometimes he ignores them, and occasionally, when it suits him, he quotes them back at me.

I take a deep breath. ‘Some of the time, I get the impression that you think they’re a load of shit,’ I say. ‘And I think we’re enormous hypocrites, because I don’t think we take our own advice. Like, would you really say that you’re my greatest cheerleader?’

I’m expecting a furious response to this, but in fairness I don’t get one.

‘No,’ he admits. ‘Not all the time, anyway. I try to be, but I guess ...’ He pauses. ‘I struggle. Especially since it all got so big, so ... I don’t know. Public.’

I'm surprised by his frankness, and I rush to mirror it, wanting him to see that I’m trying too. ‘And I don’t think I’m exactly inviting you to make time for intimacy,’ I add. He’s not the kind of man to complain about a lack of sex, but we haven’t slept together sinceI was last ovulating a couple of weeks ago, and that was a perfunctory, half-hearted event. It couldn’t have been less intimate. Every hotel room on the press tour seemed to expect sex. It felt a bit like the walls were disappointed by our attempts at conception, comparing us to other couples who’d stayed there and had delicious, chandelier-swinging shags.

‘Look, I don’t know what the answer is.’ He reaches for my arm and I lean in to his touch. ‘But I get it. Something is off. And if we don’t fix it, we’re going to be in real trouble, and obviously I don’t like the idea of ending up divorced from you.’

‘You don’t?’ It’s not a great sign that hearing him say he doesn’t want to divorce me feels like a triumph, but it’s nice. Reassuring. Like when you take a bite of food and realise that you were starving hungry, I didn’t know that I needed to hear it until he said it.

‘No. Of course I don’t.’ He looks shocked at the question, which is unreasonable because – well – because he’s made me feel recently like he’d love it if I weren’t around. On my more dramatic days, I think that if I got hit by a bus he’d be sad and everything, but that then he’d really relish the mourning period where he didn’t have to go anywhere or see anyone. No bitch wife nagging him to put on one of the outfits our stylist pulled or begging him to pose for pictures. But how the hell do you square the circle if doing the stuff which keeps a roof over your heads is making your partner like you less?

‘I know I’ve been a bit ... distracted. With the book. And the baby stuff.’ My voice is pathetically small. ‘But I don’t want to end up divorced from you either,’ I tell him,when I realise he’s looking at me and waiting for me to say something.

‘Course not. It’d be bad for the brand.’ He laughs.

If he thinks this is funny then he’s the only person who does. I get to my feet. ‘Maybe one of the things we need to work on while we’re doing this “bootcamp” is occasionally having conversations which don’t end with you being massively snide towards me?’

‘I was making a joke,’ he protests.

‘It wasn’t funny.’

‘You very rarely think my jokes are.’

‘Because they’re always at my expense!’

There’s a long silence. I get my Stanley cup, fill it with ice and screw the lid on. ‘I’m going to bed.’

‘Okay,’ he says. ‘We can work on things tomorrow.’

I know he means this nicely – genuinely I do. But his words hurt. I don’t want to ‘work’ on our marriage. I don’t want our marriage to need work, at least not in the sense that other people’s seem to. It never did before. I only started writing about us because we were so naturally good. Maybe we tempted fate. I want the light, happy, casual joy that we had in each other for the first twelve years of our relationship. I just want it without the constant worries about money or the misery of working a job I loathed.

Rule Three

100% honesty, 100% of the time

Jack

For once we’ve been allowed to drive ourselves to a work event. Jessica pulls her duvet coat around her against the chilly morning air, wincing slightly at her hand on the frozen door handle, and then clambers into the passenger seat. I feel a prick of irritation because leaving at 6 a.m. was my idea, but it was supposed to appease her. I get ratty when I drive in London traffic, and at 6 a.m. there’s very little. In my mind, that’s a perfect problem-solving solution, but apparently not.

‘It smells like damp in here,’ Jessica says, as she takes a picture of her blindingly white trainers in the footwell and typesso, so, so excited, on our way to the first ever Seven Rules residential, cannot wait to meet the couples we’re working with. She does not look so, so, so excited. In fact, the first thing she said to me this morning was, ‘It’s so early I hate everything and everyone.’

‘I’m sorry, the Ferrari is in the garage.’

‘I’m not saying we need a Ferrari, I’m just saying we could probably get something a bit less battered now we’re less broke.’

‘It smells damp because we hardly use it.’

‘Exactly, so time for a change.’

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