Lucy Diamond Is Getting Married

The second monthly column from author Lucy Diamond, who is marrying the father of her children this August…

Telling people about our impending nuptials (I love that word) has brought some surprising responses. Thankfully, most people have gone for the straightforward Congratulations!, but some have asked, Why, after all this time? (We have been together for ten years and have three children.)

One person even said, “Oh, you’re not, are you?” when we broke the news. “What do you want to do a thing like that for?” she asked. Hmmm… Let me see. Because we’re really happy together and want to throw a big party for our friends and family to celebrate that, thank you very much!

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Smug Married: Who’s on your list?

Keris Stainton‘s fortnightly column on married life…

I’ve been thinking about celebrity crushes. Not just because I’m enjoying a doozy of one at the minute (thanks to a dream – ever dream about someone and wake up madly in love with them?), but because I recently read somewhere (sorry, can’t remember where) that thinking about having an affair is as bad as actually having one. Um. I disagree.

But then I would, since I’m almost always thinking of having it away with some celebrity or other (not literally having it away with them – sometimes we’re walking hand in hand in New York or appearing on Lorraine Kelly to tell her of our love or … never mind). I know that’s not as bad as, I don’t know, fantasising about your husband’s best mate or something (not that I do that… I’m just saying), but if infidelity can take place entirely in your imagination then I should have a scarlet A on my forehead.

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Smug Married: I ain’t missing you at all

Keris Stainton‘s weekly column on married life…

As part of my new year decluttering efforts, I’ve been reading through some of my old diaries. They were mostly deadly dull, but there was one entry I found interesting.

Me and David had been married just over two years and I’d gone alone to stay with some friends. David was joining me the following day. I wrote this big thing about how I missed him and I was glad that I missed him because it meant I was still in love with him and I’d been worried that I wouldn’t miss him as much as I’d missed him when we were first together and if that had been the case that would have been troubling, but I did miss him and so needn’t have worried. Told you it was boring.

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Lucy Diamond Is Getting Married

I’m thrilled to introduce the first of our new monthly columns from author Lucy Diamond, who is getting married in August.

Here’s how it all began…

“What’s the point of getting married?” he said. “It’s just so…conventional. It ritualises what’s supposed to be personal, signing official documents and formalising everything. What’s the point?”

“Well, I think it’s romantic,” she said. “Making those vows to each other in front of friends and family, celebrating your relationship, saying you want to spend the rest of your lives together. Who cares about signing documents? It’s not about that.”
“It is in my opinion,” he said.

The years passed. They had three children and were very happy together. Still she hankered after a wedding, though. Not because she wanted to be a Mrs, not because of the dress, ring, any of the trappings. She just thought it was romantic. She thought they had something worth celebrating.

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Smug Married: Christmas present

Keris Stainton‘s weekly column on married life…

I’m not one of those Christmas planning people. I try to pick up gifts I think people will like throughout the year since there’s little I dislike more than going out shopping *for* something, while having no idea what that something is (which is why I hate trying to buy clothes for a specific occasion), but generally by the time December rolls around I’ve at least got a vague idea of what I’m going to get for my nearest and, indeed, dearest.

Around about this time, I will usually ask David, “Any idea what we should get for your family?” and he will shrug. Or say, “Haven’t a clue?” or just shake his head woefully. Over the next couple of weeks, as my Christmas shopping (and accompanying mild panic) gains apace, I will often ring him with suggestions. “How about the Two Ronnies box set for your dad?” “We got him that last year.” Then I will pick up maybe one item. In the meantime, please note, that I am buying things for my side of the family.

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Smug Married: If music be the food of love…

Keris Stainton‘s weekly column on married life…

If you’ve been reading this column for a while, you probably won’t be shocked to hear that me and David have got very different taste in music. He loves rock and heavy metal. I love pop and musicals. We have separate iPods and they have very few tunes in common.

For our last wedding anniversary we’d agreed not to buy each other anything and instead he made me an iPod playlist (the modern equivalent of a mix-tape). I thought it was a lovely idea. Until I listened to it.

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Smug Married: Nice?

Keris Stainton‘s weekly column on married life…

I am not a high maintenance woman. I can shower in ten minutes, do my make-up in two, get dressed in between five and, say, 25 minutes, depending on how I feel about my weight (“I’ve got nothing to wear! Nothing! I can’t go!”).

Once I am dressed and ready to go, all I want is a kind word from my husband. A “you look good” is good. A “you look great” would be better. A “you look gorgeous/sexy/fantastic” would be amazing, but I have to accept it’s never going to happen. And, no, I don’t accept that I never do look gorgeous/sexy/fantastic because a) sometimes I think I do and b) even if I don’t, couldn’t he just say I do? Well apparently not.

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Changing your name after marriage – Cheryl Cole, Sarah Michelle Prinze and Jessica Hynes

Several stories have been making the rounds in the media recently and they relate largely to the first two women of this title. Who is Cheryl Cole, Sarah Michelle Prinze and Jessica Hynes you might be asking. You’ll know them better as Cheryl Tweedy, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Jessica Stevenson. Their crimes? Changing their names to those of their respective husband’s!

Whilst Cheryl is a relative newlywed, she has gone one step further and actually tattooed ‘Mrs Cole’ on the nape of her neck. If she forgets her name, she’ll be tied in knots trying to see who she actually is but to everyone else she’s got the ‘I belong to a man’ stamp firmly on show. And you know what, I think it’s daft, but I’m not personally offended by it.

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Smug Married: When Keris Met David

Keris Stainton‘s weekly column on married life…

There’s a scene in my favourite film, When Harry Met Sally, in which Harry and Sally both phone their best friends, Marie and Jess, who are now a couple, to tell them that they (Harry and Sally – keep up) have slept together. After putting down the phones, Marie turns to Jess (who’s a man, by the way) and says, “Tell me I’ll never have to be out there again.” And Jess replies, “You’ll never have to be out there again.”

Last weekend I went on the hen night of one of my oldest friends and, before we went out, she said, “It’s such a relief that I don’t have to worry about pulling tonight. Because I’m getting married.”

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Smug Married: changing rooms

Keris Stainton‘s weekly column on married life…

I read an article recently that explained how you can learn a lot about your life – what you value and what you don’t – by the condition of your home. I really hope the same can’t be said for your marriage because, if so, ours is practically derelict…

When I met David, he was living in a hovel. Seriously. Because it was in Wimbledon, it was a very expensive hovel, but since it had a family of rats living in a hole in the back of the wardrobe, it was definitely a hovel. I was house-sitting for for friends. Well, former friends. Here’s some advice. If you value a friendship, don’t house-sit. Because when they say it’s okay for you to borrow their leather jacket, it turns out it’s only okay for you to borrow it only if it doesn’t then get stolen in a pub. (Along with your Sony Walkman, but did they care about that? Noooo.)

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Smug Married: towels (really)

Keris Stainton‘s weekly column on married life…

Towels. I’d considered many issues before saying “I do”, but bits of fabric you dry yourself with wasn’t one of them.

But the problems began early since, despite having, yes, more than one wedding list, we still received approximately twelve towel bails. But an abundance of towelage isn’t the issue.

This subject occurred to me this morning in the shower when I noticed there were no towels in the bathroom. I shouted David and he brought me one, saying to our son, “Mummy never remembers to check that there’s a towel before she gets in the shower, does she?” (I’ll have to write another column about the talking-through-the-kid issue.)

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Smug Married: funny peculiar

Keris Stainton‘s weekly column on married life…

When you meet your partner, they’re generally on their best behaviour, no? They try to hide all those little weird foibles and peculiarities. But when you’ve been married as long as I have, you find out about them. All about them.

David was once washing the dishes and I was alerted to him freaking out and shrieking like a girl. Turned out two forks were caught together, their tines entwined. It sent him demented. In fact, he freaks out just at the thought.

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Smug Married: Driving me crazy

Keris Stainton‘s weekly column on married life…

When I first decided to learn to drive (about eight years ago), my instructor at the time suggested I go out for practice drives with my other half. So we did. “Change gear!” David said. “What gear?” I said. “Third! Third!” he yelled. “What gear am I in now?!” I shrieked. You see, David didn’t understand that my instructor would give instructions like, “Change from second to third.” Much easier to follow. We only went out to practice together once. I decided he was a bad teacher. He decided I was an idiot.

After a break of about five years – not entirely related to the above, but not entirely unrelated either, I started lessons again. This time my new instructor didn’t recommend practicing with partners, claiming it would lead to divorce.

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Smug Married: Mother issues

Keris Stainton‘s weekly column on married life…

My husband is 37 this weekend. He left home aged 18. We’ve been married for almost 12 years and together for 13. The point of this numerical summary is simply to highlight the fact that, although he’s lived away from home for longer than he lived *at* home and that he’s lived with me for almost as long as he lived with his family … he persists in thinking I’m his mother.

Of course, as I’m sure the majority of women reading this know – because I am confident David and I are not alone in this – it’s a vicious circle. Whether it is because women are (allegedly) natural nurturers or (even more allegedly) natural naggers, when a man treats you like his mother, it’s difficult to resist acting like it. And this presents a number of problems.

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Newlyweds: The couple who work out together, stays together

Amber McNaught writes…

Terry and I have wildly different attitudes to exercise, by which I mean “he loves it, I hate it”. Over the years, we’ve tried everything to try and find a form of exercise we could both do which we’d enjoy, and which would keep us relatively fit. So far, we have failed.

We bought bikes. We bought roller blades. We bought a Wii console. We bought exercise videos. We bought a dog. (OK, so that one sort of worked, because the dog has to be walked, after all). Finally, this week, we bought a joint membership to our local health club. I can already tell how this will end…

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