Spilling the beans

I think one thing that helps sustain a long-term relationship is as much honesty as possible. Whatever's on your mind, getting it out in the open always helps (well, usually) and brings you closer to each other (well, usually).

I don't say total honesty because there are always things you prefer to keep under wraps for very good reasons. I'd be surprised if there's any couple who're totally honest with each other at all times.

Jenny and I are very honest with each other about our thoughts and feelings, but some things we keep to ourselves. I won't say things that might cause her extreme embarrassment or offence, or things she simply wouldn't understand, or reveal intimate details about previous girlfriends.

I imagine Jenny keeps silent about similar things (substituting boyfriends for girlfriends).

That's the main reason I've never even considered having a secret lover. Keeping it secret would be an act of such total dishonesty I simply couldn't do it. Likewise I couldn't be secretly addicted to gambling or alcohol or drugs.

Of course there are situations when tact demands that total honesty be ruled out, like when one of us buys a new item of clothing and wants the other to compliment us on our choice. There's no way we'd say it was hideous (well, only if it was truly ghastly).

On the rare occasion that I've been dishonest and kept something important from Jenny, I've always regretted it afterwards and wondered why I kept it from her. I guess I was simply scared of her possible reaction.

Apart from anything else, it's hard work keeping a big secret for weeks or months on end. It's much easier to spill the beans and have done with it.

And so to bed

The meaning of the bed has changed drastically over the centuries. Nowadays beds are just something for sleeping, having sex or recov-ering from illness. But during the Middle Ages they were mainly a sign of social status.

While the poor had tiny beds made of canvas and straw, often slept in by an entire family, the rich had large and elaborate beds with canopies and curtains and lots of pillows. Some of them were so luxurious and worth so much they would be bequeathed in a person's will.

When bedside tables were invented, they too became a symbol of wealth and social status. As did the number of beds in the household, Louis the 14th having more than 400.

A rich person's bed was so impressive that they would often receive guests or preside over meetings while in bed. A big contrast to today, when receiving guests in your bed is seen as totally disreputable and degenerate.

The poor of course would justify their spartan bedding by saying that anything more extravagant was just a sign of self-indulgent pampering. Pillows, they insisted, were only necessary for sick women and invalids.

It was only in the 19th century that beds started to lose their social status to other possessions, and comfort became more important than how fancy your bed was. All people want to know today is whether they will sleep soundly or toss and turn all night. Or whether the bed springs will squeak embarrassingly as they pleasure a new lover. Or whether the bed's so narrow you and your loved one will be rather too intimately entwined.

In a hotel bedroom, I also want to know that the bed is clean and bug-free and not bearing traces of the previous occupant's frolics or nausea or greasy takeaway. And that the bed linen isn't threadbare from a thousand washes. And that the bed won't collapse in the middle of the night.

If I could also have a bed that guaranteed blissful and beautiful dreams, instead of the anxious and scary ones I usually have, that would be an added bonus. But I don't think the neuroscientists have cracked that one yet.

Revenge is sweet?

I don't understand revenge. I've never sought revenge on anyone, however badly they've treated me. I've never felt that it would do me any good. If anything, it would just make me feel guilty and mean and belligerent.

But apparently a lot of people find revenge deeply satisfying. They find it cathartic, liberating, perversely enjoyable. They like to rub someone's face in their failings and make them feel as dreadful as possible.

It seems especially common among jilted or dissatisfied lovers. Women who slice up their partner's clothes or write insults on their cars or circulate embarrassing photos on the internet. Men who cut off their wives without a penny or make out they're promiscuous sluts.

Can it really be cathartic? Maybe if the person has treated you particularly shabbily. Maybe if you just want to get the frustration and anger out of your system. Maybe if you want to show them you're not simply a doormat they can wipe their feet on.

But I've never felt the urge. My father treated me badly. One or two employers have treated me badly. Some supposed friends have treated me badly. But mostly I just shrugged my shoulders, rescued my self-esteem and moved on. I never "had it in" for them. I never wanted to "give them a good kicking." That desire in itself would affect my self-esteem. It would feel undignified, cheap, vulgar, primitive. I prefer to hold my head up high and turn my back on them.

Revenge strikes me as a kind of "eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" principle, which I've never agreed with. Two wrongs don't make a right, and to my mind revenge is precisely one wrong added to another. If you want catharsis, why not just look for a better lover, a better friend, a better employer? Surely that'll do more for you in the long run than cutting up someone's clothes?

But maybe I'm just lacking a normal, healthy, full-bloodied emotion that needs to be indulged from time to time. Maybe I'm simply too kind-hearted, too phlegmatic, too rational.

Loosening the reins

When I was young, it was still the custom for couples to get their parents' approval before they got married or engaged. Nowadays that would be considered laughable.

In the fifties and sixties, some parents would resort to anything to keep their beloved offspring out of the clutches of someone they deemed unsuitable - even locking them in the house. And in those days even smoking the odd joint or liking Mick Jagger could qualify as unsuitable.

There would be furious arguments between teenagers and parents about the freedom to choose your own girlfriend or boyfriend, and parents would claim the final say in the matter.

Thankfully that's all changed and most parents no longer assume the right to interfere in their children's relationships. They believe it's their children's decision, and if they make mistakes, then it's just a question of trying again with someone else. No big deal, and it's unlikely to ruin anyone's life.

Even cohabitation, which was still quite rare when I was growing up, is now considered not only totally normal but like marriage a matter for the couple and nobody else.

But some parents still try to influence their children's choices. They're convinced a relationship can only end in disaster and they have a duty to cut it short, even at the risk of their child snubbing them instead.

They object that the girlfriend or boyfriend is the wrong class, the wrong colour, a spendthrift or just a permanent loser. They think their child is too naive, too besotted, too young, too mixed-up. Their judgment is not to be trusted.

They still can't accept that their children have to make up their own minds and determine their own lives. They can't accept that the most unlikely relationships can prosper and survive despite everyone else's doubts. They can't quite cut the apron strings.

Who needs him?

So what if you don't have a boyfriend or girlfriend? So what if there's nobody sharing your bed? Does it really matter?

Those of us who've got a partner, who're used to being brought cups of tea, or having a shoulder to cry on, or just finding the washing's been done, might think the choice is obvious.

It's a struggle being on your own, right? Nobody to help with anything, nobody to keep you company, nobody to make you laugh. Not much fun, eh?

Kate Mulvey, who calls herself a Post Modern Spinster, has no patience for other people's patronising, condescending put-downs of her chosen lifestyle.

She writes in The Times that she doesn't feel at all deprived or deficient. The idea of marriage gives her the heebie-jeebies and she certainly doesn't see herself "ferrying kids to and from parties".

I relish having all my time to myself and doing exactly what I please, she says. I don't have to neglect my career, or make constant compromises, or never get enough sleep, or hide my trashy magazines.

Why should I hitch myself to someone else, she asks. It's not the nineteenth century, I'm not going to end up in the workhouse.

Mind you, she seems to think finding a man has to mean marriage and children. Well, that's a bit nineteenth century, surely? Can't she just live with him?

Who needs even that, she says. He may seem like Mr Perfect to begin with, but chances are that in a couple of years he'll either be Mr Sulk, Mr Unfaithful or Mr Slob. Who needs him? Why bother?

PS: Isn't it strange that single people are assumed to be unhappy, unless proved otherwise, while with couples we assume the opposite?

Photo: Kate Mulvey and one of the pleasures Mr Wrong can't comment on....
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The world-famous gigastar Dame Edna Everage turns 75 this week. Happy Birthday, Ma'am! What a woman! What an inspiration to confused, insecure young girls the world over! Her pithy advice on every subject is seldom equalled.

Looking for love

I like Valentine's Day. I always ruminate on love and what makes it blossom - or wither on the vine. It's one of life's eternal mysteries.

I didn't fall in love myself until I met Jenny at the age of 34. I had wanted to fall in love many times but somehow it never quite happened.

I dated plenty of women. I kissed them, cuddled them, sometimes went to bed with them. We swopped our life stories, shared our enthusiasms, laughed at each other's quirks.

Each time I wondered if it was love. But each time it would gradually peter out. As hard as I tried, that vital spark was missing.

What was I doing wrong, I asked myself? Everyone around me was falling in love, finding their soulmate, getting married even. It seemed to come to them so easily. Was I being too fussy? Was I emotionally stunted? Was I afraid of intimacy? Was I really gay? Was I just not the falling-in-love type? I found a hundred reasons for love's elusiveness, but still it failed to find me.

The clock kept on ticking. Birthdays came and went. Likely women entered my life and disappeared from it again. I began to think falling in love must be an illusion.

All these besotted couples aren't really besotted, they're just clinging to each other because it's expected, because they're lonely, because they're desperate. This thing I'm chasing after is a mirage, a dream, a novelist's invention. But it was no good, I still believed in it and I still pursued it.

And then of course I met Jenny. Quite out of the blue, when I was least expecting it, our paths crossed and suddenly something ignited. And the rest, as they say, is history. A surprisingly long and satisfying history. A relationship that just gets deeper and deeper. What was the magic formula? I didn't know then and I don't know now. It's just one of those extraordinary miracles that leaves you gasping.

A woman's honour

Whatever next? Italian judges have ruled that it's okay for a wife to lie about her adultery in order to 'protect her honour'. And that includes lying to the police.

Having a lover, said the highest appeal court in the land*, could damage the person's honour among family and friends. It's therefore quite reasonable to deny it.

A 48 year old Tuscany woman, known only as Carla, had denied lending her mobile phone to her lover Giovanni so he could make threatening phone calls to her estranged husband.

This peculiar decision raises so many questions I don't know where to start. Adultery damages the person's honour? Surely what really damages your honour is being blindly loyal to your husband however inadequate and disappointing he is? And doesn't it damage your honour again to lie about something that's so important to you?

But no, the judges' definition of 'honour' is some old-fashioned concept of slavish devotion to your man and propping up his reputation as a virile, masculine breadwinner. Doing anything that undermines that shiny image and suggests he is falling short is unfeminine and disloyal - and 'dishonourable'. So it should be hushed up.

I suspect what it's really about is not the woman's honour but the man's. How can a man hold his head up among his peers if his wife is blatantly giving him the brush-off and running around with someone else? Can't he keep his woman in line?

And of course Italian males are particularly hung-up on their masculine image and particularly put out by anything that compromises it. But they can't admit it's their problem, so as usual it's women who carry the can. And naturally they enjoy the 'honour' of doing so.

* The Court of Cassation, La Corte di Cassazione
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Victims of domestic violence in Northern Ireland are abused on average 35 times before they contact police. The Police Service is currently campaigning for women to complain and get help as soon as possible and not let the violence continue. Good for them.