“If we ever divorced, would you marry again?” I closely watch my husband’s reaction. After a brief pause, in a calm and steady voice, without changing his expression, he replies:

So, if we ever split up, would you marry again? I ask, keeping a keen eye on my husbands face. He pauses, then says evenly, with not so much as a twitch,
After being married to such a wonderful woman clever, beautiful, and full of every virtue I cant imagine Id ever be happy with anyone else.
Ive lived with this jokester for almost half my life now. Seventeen years in, weve raised four children, are slogging through a mortgage, and building a little cottage out in the countryside. Weve survived three major marriage crises, textbook style, every five years without fail. The sinks piled with dirty dishes, toys are scattered everywhere in the kids room, theres a pot of stew on the hob, and Ive just had my nails done. My manicurist keeps insisting Im living in some fairytale my husband actually notices when Ive changed my nail colour. Not every man would care that much about his woman! she declares, waving her hands in clouds of nail varnish fumes, a bit like some village oracle.
Scatter my ashes over the sea when Im gone, I mumble, burning up with a fever, as my husband dabs my forehead with a damp flannel, paracetamol still refusing to work its magic. He clenches his jaw and growls, If you dare die before me, Ill bury you, all right. In a bright red coffin with frilly bits, and Ill put up a headstone with that photo of you as a blonde! Thats all the incentive I ever need to get better I absolutely loathe frilly anything.
No one ever believed wed make a successful marriage. To tell the truth, I still have my doubts. Were such different people, different personalities, different temperaments. Every family holiday has ended in disaster weve given up trying and now just pine for each other whenever were apart. Honestly, we drive each other round the bend.
Today I saw this elderly couple tottering up the stairs in the tube station, clinging on to the rail and each other. A passing young couple glanced at them, all dreamy-eyed: Lets grow old together! Hurry up! grumbled the old man, shuffling along.
No one ever really knows another soul. And what goes on in someone elses family is even murkier. Theres what you see, and then theres everything you dont hidden, mysterious, quietly meaningful. Are family destinies decided down there in the depths? Are they built from kindness or cruelty, indifference or empathy, patience or will, compassion or anger, poverty of stuff or richness of spirit? Who knows? I certainly dont. Sometimes a tube of toothpaste can do more damage than an earthquake in a family, just as Mr. Coward described.
My husband sometimes rings me up with only an hours notice to say hes bringing mates home. I race about, somehow pulling together a full-on feast of five dishes in record time. Not because Im the submissive housewife type, but because hospitality means everything to him. Just as much as his freedom to fish whenever he feels like it or to choose exactly what he wants to wear or eat.
Freedom matters to me too. In a big, noisy family like ours, grown-ups have to put up with all sorts of restrictions. We swallow our anger and irritation, clean up our language (instead of Oh just get lost already! we say, Can we talk about how youre feeling? you get the idea) and juggle our schedules around the childrens clubs and school routines. Our money goes on those mischievous little monsters and deep down, all I really crave is a new lipstick
But if, in this wilful captivity, the adults start clamping down on each others tiny freedoms, life at home would soon be too much to bear. We simply have to learn to trust one another. To speak honestly, and hope our confessions wont be held against us (spoiler: sometimes they are). And to remember theres a secret inner room in each of us, a shadow cabinet quietly working up peace terms. For those unfamiliar: in British politics, the shadow cabinet is the oppositions team, always figuring out different ways to run the show.
Once, I was furious about something I cant even remember what now, but I was so hurt I felt slightly breathless. But I stopped short of strangling anyone only out of respect for the law. I was crying, Thats it! Divorce! Never again! How much does a flat cost round here? jabbing my phone like a madwoman.
Then the kids dragged out the old guitar the same one my husband, back when he was a lanky lad with a floppy fringe, would use to play songs hed written for my silly poems. I remembered how he comforted me after a row with a friend. How he supported me when nasty comments appeared on my first article (ten years ago now, and yet, girls keep the criticism coming, it gets easier!). How he defended me in spats with relatives. How he does Saturday breakfasts and ferries the children all over town, so I can have a lie-in. How long would it take to find a bloke who knows how to kiss like that? came a voice from that secret inner room. No wise ruler ever ignores the opposition if he wishes to last, let me tell you.
A family is not just about raising kids. Single people can be parents. Its not just about running a home or a survival strategy friends can live together and be just as stable. And its not about having shared hobbies or business ventures workmates and collaborators manage that.
A family is a quiet pact between a man and a woman, slowly intertwining over the years. Children? Theyre just passing through, off down their own roads soon enough. But well remain: slightly daft, slightly frail, with a handful of memories. Well trudge through our old-age routines, holding each other up. And when he grumbles, Keep moving! Ill fire back, Excuse me, sir! Im a respectable married woman shame on you! But honestly, who could possibly resist you?
And then well both burst out laughing.