Secret spending

It seems a surprising number of adults hide their purchases on things like beauty products, gambling and clothing from their partners as part of a pattern of secret spending.

A survey of 4000 adults showed that men on average spent £2545 without their partner's knowledge in the past year. Women spent an average of £1769.

The young are more secretive with their spending than older generations, with an average of £4303 in the past year. Those over 55 spent an average of just £384.

Jenny and I have never bought anything secretly, except presents to each other. We wouldn't dream of such sneaky behaviour. And we aren't embarrassed by anything we buy. I might think Jenny has been a bit extravagant, she might think the same about me, but secret spending never crosses our minds.

I think it says something negative about the nature of your relationship if you feel you can't be upfront about what you're buying. Especially if your secret purchases are so hefty that you're getting into alarming levels of debt that the other person doesn't know about.

How can you justify the secrecy?

PS: The figures above are mysterious. How are they compiled? Do people really remember every secret purchase they've made over the last year? And the exact price they paid? Or are the figures based on estimates?

Alive and kicking

There's a British TV drama right now called "Marriage", which depicts marriage as being boring, frustrating and claustro-phobic. It may seem like a blissful union to start with, is the message, but as time goes by it'll become something very tedious and joyless.

Most of the critics agreed. Marriage sooner or later turns rotten, this is a brilliant portrayal of what it becomes, telling it like it is etc.

Well, Jenny and I couldn't recognise this depressing view of marriage. Is the typical long-term marriage really so dismal and vacuous? Are couples really so non-communicative, so ground-down, so forlorn?

Our marriage may go back 27 years but as far as we're concerned it's still very much a "blissful union" and we don't at all feel it's degenerated into something tedious and joyless. We get on very well, we enjoy doing things together, we have wonderful conversations about everything under the sun, we resolve our differences easily, and there's lots of laughter and excitement.

We don't feel there's anything lacking in our relationship. We don't think that maybe we'd be better off with someone else. We don't think we've taken some wrong turning and landed up somewhere we don't want to be. We're very happy just where we are.

If the average marriage really is as dismal as this TV drama makes out, I feel sorry for all those couples trapped in such an unsatisfying situation. Did they just marry the wrong person in the first place, have they simply lost interest in each other, or do they lack the skills needed to reinvigorate a tired relationship?

All I can say is, Jenny and I are very lucky our marriage hasn't become so "hollowed out" and is still alive and kicking.

What might have been

When I think of my parents (both now dead), I have a strong sense of loss. But it's not the loss of what was, or what they meant to me. It's the loss of what might have been, what I never had.

It's not the loss of what was, because I was never close to either of them. They were so different from me and never understood the sort of person I was, or what I wanted to do with my life. And they were both very cagey about anything personal.

Some people are lucky enough to have a close relationship with one or both of their parents, one that's enriching and inspiring and supportive. When those parents die, there's a deep sense of an important part of one's life being taken away. All at once there's a big hole that needs somehow to be filled.

In my case that particular sense of loss is absent. What I feel is more the loss of what might have been - exactly that sort of intimate bond with a parent that might have greatly enriched my life.

Above all, the lack of that close relationship means I know next to nothing about my parents' personal lives and they remain shadowy, blurry figures. Just about everything that happened to them before I was born is a mystery. Likewise much of what they thought and felt. Did they ever get anxious or depressed or frustrated or despairing? What went through their minds? Mostly, I have no idea.

They must surely have wanted close bonds with their children (otherwise why have children at all?), so why did they do so little to foster that closeness? Why were they always so reticent, so guarded? Why couldn't they open up? It leaves another sort of big hole - but one that can never be filled.

Trust

It's easy to take for granted in a relationship that your partner can be trusted - that they'll do what they say, behave the way you expect them to, and in general not present you with any nasty surprises.

I feel sorry for those women who can't trust their men an inch - who're never sure where they are or what they're doing, and always suspect they're up to something disturbing or illegal or shameful. They're forever on tenterhooks, wondering what fresh embarrassments are on the way (I guess there are also men who can't trust their women but far fewer of them).

Jenny and I have complete trust in each other. We don't dread finding out something shocking about the other person.

Jenny knows I'm not going to raid our savings and disappear into the night, or develop some insatiable addiction to gambling or alcohol or drugs or porn, or burn the house down, or wreck the car, or run off with a buxom blonde twenty years younger, or live in a cave seeking spiritual enlightenment, or smash windows in Whitehall, or join the British National Front.

She knows I value her company and won't be down the pub every evening with my mates, discussing football, making misogynist jokes, ranting about immigrants, getting blind drunk, and then heaving a sigh and saying "Oh well, I suppose I'd better be getting back to the old ball and chain."

I guess there are women who've lost all trust in their men but stick with them anyhow, rather than start afresh with a new partner who might turn out to be equally untrustworthy. After all, could they ever trust a man again?

It's very easy to destroy trust and very hard to rebuild it.

Everybody does it

I was shocked to read of an Irish school where manipul-ative, controlling, pressurising relation-ships are so common the students think they're normal. They have no idea relationships are meant to be about equality, respect and kindness.

The majority of 200 students questioned about their relationships at a school in Tralee, Ireland, reported being constantly "told what to do, who to talk to, who to block, who to spend time with, and what to wear". The students said the behaviour upset them but "everybody does it".

I think back to my own time at school, and I can't remember anything remotely like that. Yes, there was a bit of bullying at my boarding school, usually just making fun of someone, but nothing as toxic as what these students are describing.

Social media is partly to blame, I'm sure. It's become so common now for people to criticise other people, and anonymity means they can be as abusive and threatening as they wish with no comeback. So abusive and threatening comments are normalised as routine behaviour.

Lack of self-confidence must come into it as well. If young people don't have the confidence to follow their own instincts, resist coercion and tell the person concerned to get lost, then things can only get worse.

It seems that today's students need lessons not just on what is and what isn't sexual consent, but also on what a normal relationship consists of - caring and affectionate behaviour that respects the other person's needs and wellbeing. It's extraordinary that anyone needs to be reminded of such things.

PS: I see that in England, the Department for Education has introduced a compulsory Sex and Relationships Education curriculum in all schools, focusing on relationships in primary schools and sex and relationships in secondaries.

Silver splitters

Apparently there's a rising trend for "silver splitters" - older couples who divorce in their fifties or sixties, often after decades of marriage, and either marry again or stay single. They no longer want to stay together till the bitter end, but decide to split up and make a new start while there's still plenty of their life left.

But one relationship counsellor says that people underestimate the consequences of splitting, both for themselves and other family members. It can be much more expensive than they thought, it can greatly upset their children, and it can be hard to cast aside the psychological bonds of a long-lasting relationship.

Personally, I can't imagine leaving Jenny and starting again with someone else. After so many years of forging such close bonds with each other, I'm sure it would be incredibly difficult to begin that process all over again with another person. At every step I'd be bringing a whole lot of emotional baggage from my previous relationship, which surely would get in the way of making a new one.

Of course if your existing relationship is disastrous, if there's domestic violence, if you have fiercely differing views on many subjects, if you simply don't get on, if your partner is an alcoholic or a drug addict, then it's a lot easier to make the break, though even then there may be a reluctance to give up on a relationship you've invested so much in over so many years.

Then again, some former spouses simply don't want another relationship. They decide they're perfectly happy living on their own. As one divorcee put it: "All of my girl friends who have got divorced went wild in the year afterwards. They were having a blast dating guys."

What you might call Silver Seducers.

Shared traits

How do you maintain a relationship (and a marriage) for nigh on 40 years without the D-word rearing its ugly head? How do you keep things sweet despite all the possible pitfalls and trip-wires? I think it helps a lot if you share a few basic behavioural traits. For instance:

• We love each other to bits, obviously.
• We're both neat and tidy. We put the cap back on the toothpaste, we don't leave discarded clothes on the floor, we don't leave food remnants in the sink. It must be hell if one of you is a messy slob and the other isn't.
• We're both vegetarian and we both like similar foods. Especially Italian and Indian food.
• We're both energetic and keep ourselves busy. We don't sprawl on the sofa all day, watching old sitcoms.
• We're both voracious readers. If one of us never read anything but cookery books or car manuals, that would be that.
• We're both over-thinkers, analysing everything to the nth degree - politics, news events, other people's quirks, shopping trends, you name it.
• We both do our share of the housework. We don't (on the whole) assume such-and-such is the other person's job/ the woman's job/ the man's job.
• We both like Scandinavian crime dramas.
• We consult each other about everything, and never make important decisions (even choice of curtains) unilaterally.
• We both like breakfast in bed (toast and marmalade) on Sunday mornings.
• We don't fight over who's going to drive the car.
• We're both minimalists with a horror of clutter. We have regular clear-outs of stuff we no longer need/ want/ use/ enjoy.
• We're both socialists. It's hard to understand how political and ideological opposites can live together without coming to blows.

There must be other things I've forgotten, but that's fairly comprehensive. It makes me realise how lucky we were to run into each other. What are the chances of two random strangers sharing so many attitudes?

Leap in the dark

Living with Jenny now seems like the most natural thing in the world, but it wasn't always like that. It took me a long time to decide that yes, we could probably live together without driving each other nuts.

Falling in love was easy enough. We took a shine to each other the moment we met and that has never faded. But for me living together was a major commitment that might or might not have worked out.

I had had affairs with several other women and the first question that always came to mind was, could we live together harmoniously or would we wind up clawing each other to pieces? I rather suspected it would be the second.

So although Jenny was keen to live with me very early on, it took a fair bit of persuading for me to agree to give it a try. I had to swallow the possibility that we might be driven crazy by each other's infuriating habits and tastes and end up calling it a day.

After all, I had lived on my own for 6½ years and got used to my own company. How would I adjust to suddenly living with someone else, someone I still knew very little about and might be the totally impossible flatmate from hell? It was a big leap in the dark, but one I took because in the end it felt like the right thing to do.

Needless to say, in the early days of cohabiting we had plenty of squabbles and bones of contention, but we discovered our relationship was solid enough to survive them without falling apart. And 39 years later, we still have squabbles and bones of contention and we still settle them amicably.

Far from driving each other nuts, we've nourished each other in a thousand different ways.

Girl friends

I didn't have that many serious relation-ships before I met Jenny, and they only lasted a few months or even weeks. It wouldn't take long for one of us to become disenchanted with the other and call it a day. I was very picky about who I dated and the women likewise.

• There was Sue, my very first girl friend, a trainee solicitor who had a mental breakdown after completing her exams and stopped dating.
• There was Gill, a religious Tory supporter, who was great fun but we finally fell out over politics.
• There was Caroline, a go-getter and reckless driver who got bored with my laid-back-ness.
• There was Pamela, who I dropped because she was oddly submissive and deferential to men (I always preferred assertive women).
• There was Maggie, scatty and accident-prone, who I ruthlessly abandoned after falling for Trish at a party.
• There was Grethe, a single mum with a truculent son, who I stopped seeing because her highly-stressed chain-smoking was only fuelling my own anxieties.
• There was Rosie, who took a fancy to me when she was fighting with her existing boy friend, but then made it up with him.

• And of course there was Trish, a freewheeling sixties flower child. We lived together for about six months before I decided we were incompatible and abruptly pulled the plug. That's something that bugs me to this day. I have no idea what I meant by incompatible. As far as I remember we got on very well. Maybe it was just the masculine fear of commitment.

There were lots of women I lusted after along the way, but they showed not a flicker of interest in return. Hardly surprising since I was never a dazzling Mr Beefcake, more a pigeon-chested Mr Average. I've posted before about my obsession with Gina, who I was besotted with but who always politely rebuffed me.

Then in 1981 I met Jenny. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Asking for trouble

It's a truism that you can never understand other people's relation-ships. If you offer any well-meaning advice, you're asking for trouble. Chances are you'll be told to shut up and mind your own business.

But the number of times I've asked myself questions like:

"All they do is argue. What on earth keeps them together?"
"I'm told they never have sex. What on earth....?"
"She's totally sweet, he's a loud-mouthed alcoholic bully. What on earth....?"
"He never lifts a finger, he just sits around watching TV. What on earth....?"
"He has one affair after another. What on earth....?"
"All she does is whinge and moan. What on earth....?"

I guess there's some underlying motive or dynamic that keeps such couples together despite the baffling outward behaviour. It's all about money, or security, or property, or loyalty, or habit. Something strong enough to override the arguments and affairs and alcoholism. Something only they can appreciate.

A relationship you're sure is going to collapse at any minute lasts for 50 years. One that seems like the perfect match ends in divorce a few months later. There's no accounting for it.

Relationships are so intricate, trying to analyse one is a bit like being a novice at quadratic equations. Or the rules of chess. You're bound to make a fool of yourself because of your total ignorance of the complexities. Best to keep your thoughts to yourself.

Of course if someone actually confesses to a marital crisis and asks for your advice, that's another matter. And the crisis they reveal will probably be very different from anything you might have  imagined.

As for my own relationship, Jenny and I have been an item now for almost 38 years. How extraordinary is that? So what keeps us together? Buggered if I know. Some mysterious connection that's impossible to comprehend. And even more impossible to put into words.

Shared passions

I had an interesting thought about loneliness the other evening, while I was sipping wine at an art gallery exhibition launch. I wondered why I didn't feel lonely, even though I was on my own and I was surrounded by people in couples and groups chattering away to each other.

Loneliness is normally taken to mean the lack of close relationships in your life, the sort of relationships where you can connect with someone at a deep level and feel a sense of intimacy and empathy.

But I wasn't with anyone else, so why didn't I feel lonely? I realised it was because even though I wasn't with someone, I shared with the others present a passion for modern art, and an enthusiasm for this particular artist, which meant I felt connected to them and had that sense of intimacy and empathy that dispels loneliness.

I get the same sort of feeling when I attend political rallies. I share with those around me the same political aims and attitudes, the same passion for a better and fairer society, and again that makes me feel connected to them.

In fact I feel connected to other people in all sorts of ways. I see them going through the same struggles as myself, the same difficulties, the same successes and failures, the same hopes and fears, and I don't need to talk to them or befriend them to empathise with their predicaments.

It surprises me when people don't feel that general connectedness to others, when they feel cut off from other people, shut up in their own personal existence as if there's some invisible barrier between them and the rest of the world.

I should sip wine at art galleries more often. And wait for the dazzling insights.

Growing apart

One thing that can quickly threaten a relationship is a clash of fundament-ally different beliefs. Religious and political beliefs especially, but anything the couple fiercely disagree on.

Often there's an unexpected breaking-point. With one couple it was a miscarriage. Although their views were diverging more and more, they were sticking together - until she lost her baby.

William had been fairly agnostic while his wife was intensely religious. For a while this wasn't a problem. But after the miscarriage they reacted very differently. While William became a confirmed atheist, wondering how a deity could kill an unborn child, his wife found comfort in her religious beliefs, which became even stronger.

When he finally admitted to her that he was an atheist, she had "a full-blown meltdown" and said he would go to hell. He tried to repair the damage by not talking about religion, but things got worse and she asked for a divorce.

An unfortunate turn of events, but one that's probably very common. It's hard to get along if your views differ so dramatically. Initial tolerance of each other's views can easily turn into open hostility.

Luckily both Jenny and I are atheists, socialists and feminists, so scope for disagreement is strictly limited. We won't be at each other's throats over something as basic as the pros and cons of capitalism. We're more likely to differ over the choice of carpeting or whether the bed linen needs a wash.

And neither of us have strange obsessions the other can't stomach. We're not fans of alternative medicine, or flying saucers, or psychic phenomena, or wild conspiracy theories. We're both habitual sceptics who believe in more tangible realities like ice cream and pinot grigio.

If that means we're bound for hell, so be it.

The final straw

I'm always interested in what destroys a relation-ship, what drives people apart. Especially if couples have been together for decades and then suddenly, apparently right out of the blue, they're getting divorced and it's all over.

Usually they don't reveal the exact cause of the meltdown. Or only to their closest friends. They tell people vaguely that "it simply wasn't working any more" or "he just wasn't the same person". Strange habits and personal failings are hinted at but not spelt out. You can only guess at the straw that broke the camel's back.

I'm forever astonished at how long Jenny and I have been together. In some ways we're very different, and I'm amazed there's never been some fundamental clash that proved impossible to resolve. The usual clichés about "loads of give and take" and "giving your partner plenty of space" don't go very far. The winning formula, whatever it is, is too complex to be summed up so neatly.

I think one reason we've stuck together is that somehow we've dodged all the big issues that tend to ambush other couples.

Like money. We're both sensible about spending and neither of us have expensive habits that soak up cash. We don't gamble, binge drink, buy flashy cars or go for £1,000 suits. Like affairs. We've never been tempted. Like children. We both agreed very early on that we didn't want them. Like sex. There's no nagging incompatibility. Like insecurity and jealousy. We're not threatened by the other's friendships or activities. Like bad communication. We're good at opening up and talking things through. And like mutual respect. Many couples break up because the man turns out to be an engrained misogynist, or the woman is nagging and controlling.

But that isn't the whole story either. Plenty of other things could have capsized us, could have driven a wedge between us. Somehow we've sidestepped them all. How lucky is that?

Playing the field

I can't imagine what it's like to live with a man who's a compulsive flirt and womaniser. Whenever he's out of your sight, you must be wondering what he's up to and fearing the worst.

Your suspicions of womanising must intensify if he's a prominent public figure mixing with glamorous women who admire powerful men. Can he resist the endless temptation?

I guess you have several choices. Either you watch him like a hawk and try to prevent any shenanigans, or you accept that's the way he is and adapt to it, or you kiss him goodbye and get him out of your life.

I have no such worries about Jenny, and vice versa. Neither of us have ever been promiscuous and we know there are no shameful confessions in the offing. Old-fashioned maybe but that's how we like it.

It must be almost as bad to live with a man who's insanely jealous and convinced you're having affairs when you're not. My father was always sure my mother was up to something behind his back - not only with men but with women. He simply couldn't believe she was 100 per cent loyal to him and was never enticed by anyone else. He thought she was so attractive that other men must be making advances all the time. She would be hurt and offended by his outrageous accusations, but her angry denials never entirely persuaded him.

It doesn't help that affairs are now considered normal by many people. If you've lived with someone for many years, isn't it natural that you get bored with each other sexually and need a fresh partner to stir up that sluggish libido?

Well, it depends on the couple and their relationship, I guess. To some, looking elsewhere might seem the obvious thing to do. To others, it's a sign the relationship is failing and needs to be reassessed.

Fortunately, not a dilemma I've had to face.

Sticking together

An article today claims that the best predictor of whether a relationship will last or not is how conscien-tious you are. If you're efficient and reliable, your relationship will do well. If you're scatty and disorganised, sooner or later it's break-up time.

If you answer yes to these five questions, then supposedly everything's rosy and the two of you will stick together like glue into a blissful old age.

a) do you pay attention to detail?
b) do you get chores done straightaway?
c) do you like order?
d) do you follow a schedule?
e) do you ensure you are always well-prepared?

Well, I'm not sure conscientiousness predicts anything at all. Some people might love a partner who's so well organised and methodical, but it would drive others round the bend. They'd hate the constant activity and fussing and demand some mindless lazing about for a change. They'd ask why everything has to be done right now and why it can't wait till tomorrow. Or next week. Or next year.

Jenny and I are both efficient and reliable people, which is definitely one reason why we've stayed together for so long. We absolutely loathe disorder and mess, and we would certainly say yes to all those questions. We don't let the greasy dishes pile up. We don't leave dirty clothes everywhere. We don't run out of food. Our household is a well-oiled machine and we like it that way.

If I have to stay for any length of time in a more shambolic household, I do find it hard to cope with. I keep wanting to leap up and sort everything out, and I have to resist my organising urge and hide my dismay. Interestingly, some of those households consist of very long-standing relationships, which just goes to show the experts are wrong yet again.

Health warning: take all quizzes with a pinch of salt.

Object lesson

I think couples are often objectified in the same way as women are objectified. People make judgments on the basis of what the couple looks like, with little or no knowledge of what actually goes on "inside" the relationship.

A relationship dismissed as sterile, or unbalanced, or destructive, by casual observers might actually be a very happy and fulfilling relationship, but only the couple themselves know that, while the naysayers have got it entirely wrong.

But people do love to judge other people's relationships, seemingly quite oblivious that they're almost certainly misreading them and simply making an arse of themselves.

Celebrity couples in particular seem to attract this vacuous opinionising, but couples everywhere have been subjected to it at one time or another. I'm sure we all know couples whose friends or relatives have said "That'll never work. They'll have split up in six months", and then lo and behold, ten years later they're still going strong.

Apart from anything else, how people behave in public can be very different from how they behave in private, in the seclusion of their own household, where they can be completely natural and uninhibited. In public they may change their behaviour dramatically, putting on a show of politeness or generosity or open-mindedness (or for that matter naked aggression) that's totally false.

In which case making impassioned judgments on the basis of what couples are choosing to show you is not only superficial but gullible.

Even the smartest guesses can never plumb the infinite mystery of human pairings.

Give and take

What's the formula for an enduring relation-ship? How come Jenny and I have stuck together for 34 years and not 34 days? What's the glue that keeps it all going? Well, I can think of one or two things.

1) Respect the need for privacy. If the other person prefers to dress/undress in private, or use the bathroom in private, or just be on their own for a while, why not? Total sharing at all times doesn't suit everyone.

2) Accept those idiosyncracies. We all have odd obsessions and habits - hoovering every ten minutes, or scraping out the marmalade jar, or leaving dirty clothes everywhere - and there's no point in trying to change them. That's how we are.

3) Sharing the domestic chores. If one person is doing the lion's share of the chores, and feeling increasingly resentful, it's a recipe for disaster. It has to be even stevens.

4) Maintain the romance. If all the romance has gone out of the relationship, it's dead in the water. There have to be things that keep you a bit starry eyed, a bit soppy, and hopelessly enamoured.

5) Mutual self-expression. It's all a charade if one person is totally doing their thing, while the other is permanently suppressing themself and being what the other wants them to be. You both need to grow.

6) Shared perspectives. Seeing everyday issues in a similar way is important. How clean you expect the house to be, what to spend your money on, how much socialising you like to do. Total incompatibilities can be fatal.

7) Loving each other's bodies. Even as we get older, and wrinklier, and saggier, we still love what we see. We don't hanker after something younger and fresher. Whatever we look like, it's just fine.

8) Communication.* Whatever's going on inside, let the other person know. Too much secrecy and holding-back, too much image-control, will strangle the relationship.

Or to put all that in a nutshell - plenty of give and take. Oh, and plenty of sweet nothings.

* This one thanks to Dave Martin (see comments)

Love actually

I think it's about time this entry from February 2012 was reposted....

It's funny how when you start a relationship with someone, you've no idea how long it's going to last. It could be 30 days or 30 years. Or 30 minutes. Which is one reason why making out with someone new is so exciting.

When I first met Jenny at a central London bookshop and nervously fixed a date, I hadn't a clue what would happen.

We might have had a violent argument 10 minutes later and both walked off in a huff. We might have tried our best to get on with each other and decided it was a case of Mr Chalk and Ms Cheese. One of us might have had some personal passion the other totally detested.

If anyone had predicted we'd still be seriously in love over three decades later, I'd have scoffed and told them to catch themselves on*. I'd have said, how likely is that when relationships come and go like taxis. Surely sooner or later we'll get bored with each other, get itchy feet, and start looking for an upgrade.

But the months and years rolled on and in some mysterious way we found ourselves still together, still enamoured, despite all the predictable squabbles, misunderstandings, grievances and stand-offs. They were never severe enough to break the deep bond that had somehow established itself.

That we've reached the present day in such enduring harmony never ceases to amaze me. It's as if we've been on a long journey through unfamiliar territory with a thousand opportunities to get lost, get eaten by wolves, fall into a ravine or be crushed by a landslide, and by some miracle we've avoided all the dangers and reached our destination.

I can only give thanks to whatever guardian angel is looking after us and keeping this old banger** on the road.

* come down to earth. A common Northern Irish expression.

** the relationship that is. Not Jenny or me.

(I've changed the image again. Jenny and I have slipped back into anonymity. Well, you've all seen the real us now....)

Boarding blues

As someone who spent five years at boarding school, I applaud the campaign by Boarding Concern to keep younger children out of such schools to avoid lasting mental and emotional damage.

Many psychologists are now convinced that children who are suddenly wrenched out of their customary family environment and left to fend for themselves among strangers with only a passing interest in them suffer emotional injury that hampers their entire adult life.

They can suffer a host of negative emotions that are never properly dealt with. They can feel abandoned, betrayed, neglected, demoralised, bewildered, shocked, angry, sad, vulnerable and distressed. But nobody takes any notice. They're just expected to bury their misery, toughen up and pretend everything's fine.

The family members who would normally validate their feelings and give them the support they need aren't around, and the school staff are unwilling or unable to step into their shoes.

The result is that many boarders leave school emotionally repressed, and permanently distrustful and insecure. All that leads to serious problems with relationships and personal growth. Over and over again, the spouses of such ex-boarders (usually wives) comment on their inadequate personalities and emotional illiteracy.

Personally I can vouch for that. Although I'm much more in touch with my own, and other people's, feelings than I used to be, I'm still far from emotionally fluent and I still have a lot of trouble expressing what's going on inside me.

The staff at my school never showed any interest in my emotional well-being and left me to sink or swim in an atmosphere of rugged masculinity.

I'm glad the psychological pain of boarding is finally being recognised and I hope fewer children will be exposed to it. But it's depressing to learn that right now boarding schools are as popular as ever and just as many thoughtless parents are dumping their children into these destructive institutions (around 74,000 at the last count). They seem to be wilfully blind to the emotional harm that's being done to innocent hearts and minds.

The agony of divorce

If you think staying married can be tricky, try getting divorced. It often leads to the most horrendous and tangled proceedings you could imagine. Bitter squabbles over every aspect of the break-up, from children to property to money to how much each spouse contributed to the marriage.

A High Court judge said recently he was filled with "nothing but despair" over a wealthy couple who had already spent some £700,000 on divorce proceedings which had barely started, such were the labyrinthine arguments about aspects of the relationship. He decried the "unedifying" sight of a family "tearing itself apart."

It seems virtually impossible for a couple to divorce amicably and sensibly, with the bare minimum of fuss. The long-standing anger and resentment that led to the split in the first place seem to boil over in the courtroom and create one impasse after another. Each partner is afraid of giving too much away, losing out, appearing to be weak, and they keep upping the ante.

I know of several couples whose divorce was a horrific experience, with one or the other digging their heels in, refusing to compromise, and making life as difficult as possible for the soon-to-be ex-spouse. Very profitable for the lawyers but a nightmare for the warring couple.

There have been many attempts to replace ugly court cases with informal mediation arrangements, but quite often they lead to much the same stubborn wrangling.

My parents were sometimes bruised enough to talk about getting divorced. But they never did. In the end they stuck together as that's what most couples did in those days. "For the sake of the children" as they usually explained it. Maybe they should have divorced, but I'm glad they didn't. I can only imagine the tearful and rancorous scenes it would have involved and the misery for each parent as they tried to move on.

A shame there isn't some kind of foolproof psychological test couples can take before they marry, to determine if they're truly compatible or in the throes of some grand romantic illusion. It could save an awful lot of agony later on if things turn nasty.