Page 45 of Seven Rules for a Perfect Marriage

‘Okay, so why don’t you take your laptop to the pub for a couple of hours?’

‘Am I ... allowed?’ I ask.

She laughs. ‘Are you allowed to take a couple of hours for yourself? Yes, Jack. Yes, you are.’

This is the most obvious suggestion imaginable. ‘I was worried you’d be hurt that I didn’t want to hang out,’ I say sheepishly.

‘I love you, but the idea of an evening here alone to do all my gross beauty shit without you around and then watch an episode of something you’d judge me for? That sounds like the most perfect Friday night.’

‘Are you sure that’s okay? That it’s not a bad sign?’

She rolls her eyes at me and points at the door. ‘Out.’

I wander down the road to a sweet ivy-covered pub I’ve never been to before. I write half a chapter of the book I’ve been working on since I was twenty-two. Drink a pint of the Hobbitty ale I can’t usually order because I share a bottle of wine with Jess. And then I walk home and crawl into bed with her, smelling the sweet citrus of her neck and her hair.

‘Did you have fun?’ she asks.

‘I did. It was a decent place. Burgers the size of your head, served on actual plates, none of that slate nonsense. I want to take you there at the weekend.’

‘Sounds lovely,’ she says, stretching and pulling another of my pillows into her arms. ‘Sleep well.’

When I’m lying next to her, I always do.

Jessica

‘This morning you’re going to spend some time being selfish,’ Suze tells us, as we all sit around in the armchairs and on the sofas. ‘Jessica, could you explain a little about the rationale?’

‘Sure,’ I say, getting to my feet. ‘So, selfishness gets a bad rep. But we’ve found that by taking some time to be selfish, we’re way better partners to each other. You need time where you’re not thinking about other people’s needs, where you can focus on yourself and recharge your batteries. You can’t pour from an empty cup. When you live together and spend a lot of your time together, there’s a bit of a risk that you sort of lose yourself. There’s a lot of compromise in a good marriage, and we love that. But in order to maintain that original version of you – the one your partner fell in love with – you need to do things which recharge you.’

I recount a story of when we first moved in and Jack went out for the night and how it turned out to be the best thing for us.

‘See, love?’ Ben says to Chloe. ‘She’s saying that I need to be able to go golfing all weekend!’

‘That’s not really what I’m saying,’ I say, trying to be patient. I know Ben is joking, and he’s actually a very decent guy, but it’s a criticism I’ve heard levelled at our method a lot, and it’s one which annoys me. This isn’t about men going off on a four-hour cycle while their wife looks after the kids at home. It’s about improving yourself so that you’re a better person, and by extension, a better partner. ‘There’s a place for the golfing,’ I say, trying not to sound like a primary school teacher. ‘What you absolutely don’t want to do is have a situation where one of you – and let’s face it, in a heterosexual relationship, it’s usually the bloke – spends their weekend seeing mates, and the other partner picks up all the domestic labour. You also want to try to avoid a situation where the “fun” stuff that you do to be selfish is actually like, having a shower or going to the supermarket. That’s essential maintenance, not self-care.’

‘How does that work when you’ve got kids?’ Verity asks. ‘Or you work full-time?’

‘That’s a really good question,’ I acknowledge. ‘I used to try to take a bit of my commute each morning and listen to an audiobook I was really looking forward to, to make that dead time into a bit of a treat. And of course if you’re in a two-parent relationship, then you can tag in and tag out to make sure the other person gets a little window to read a book, go for a walk, or see friends.’

It’s a pretty textbook answer – I’m basically quoting the book – but it’s not a bad one, and I do mean it. I get that it’s easy for us with our flexible job and zero caringresponsibilities to sit here and preach at people like Verity who’ve got three young kids and probably mounting bills to go with that. But I’ve been there, at least with the money and the job. I didn’t come from a life like this one, and I don’t like the idea that if you’ve got kids and a busy life then you can’t be selfish occasionally.

‘You’ll have a couple of hours,’ Suze says, ‘and you’re going to go off individually and do whatever you would like. We have the pool open, there’s an entertainment centre in the lounge, you can go for a walk, take part in a crafting session in the library – or do whatever else you most enjoy. Cait, Will and I will be around if you have any additional requests.’

Everyone stands around a bit awkwardly trying to work out what to do next. Ken makes noises about watching some sport on the telly, Noah wants to pray, Stuart wants to work out, and I’m not sure where everyone else is going, but within moments they’ve all dispersed, including Jack, and I’m left standing alone in the snug wondering what to do.

An old version of me would put on an old season ofReal Housewivesand exfoliate, pluck all my ingrown hairs and paint my nails. But now I have a dermatologist-prescribed shower gel which exfoliates chemically. My hair is lasered and I’ve got shellac on my nails. All my grooming is outsourced. There’s an essay I need to start work on for my course, but that’s hardly the point of the exercise. I could go for a run, I guess. It would be nice to move my limbs, and the rhythm of my feet on the ground always helps calm the gnawing in my stomach. But we’ve gotthis photoshoot later which I have to look decent for, and if I go for a run, I’ll have to wash my hair, and I’ll still be pink in the face by the time the photographer arrives – and again, I don’t know if it would really fit the bill. My actual current activity of choice when I have the house to myself is to sit on a pregnancy forum for several hours and read about treatments I haven’t tried, and comment on posts from strangers about their potential pregnancy symptoms. Again, obviously not something I’m going to want to share when we all catch up later. What I’d like to do is plan and schedule some content about the weekend, but then I’ll have to try and explain that working is genuinely my favourite way to spend my time, and usually when I try to explain that, people look at me like I’m a loser.

Maybe I could go and have a nap? That would kill a couple of hours. But that’s not going to sound great when everyone asks what we did. I’ll read. Reading is a perfectly safe, sensible activity that no one can take issue with. And maybe I’ll spend a couple of minutes thinking about how I’ve got no idea what to do for fun. Which really can’t be a good sign.

I wander the corridor and eventually I see Ken watching snooker on the TV. I linger in the doorway, not sure whether to go in or not.

‘Have you ever played?’ he asks, without turning around.

‘No,’ I say. ‘I mean, I’ve tried it a couple of times in the pub.’

Ken laughs. ‘I can’t see you in the kind of place that’s got a snooker table.’

‘You’d be surprised,’ I say defensively. ‘I used to be fun when I was younger.’

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