When your other half brings out the worst in you

Why your other half could be bringing out the worst in you

Being in a couple makes you fat, according to new research (and, no, you haven’t read this before – that was being friends with fatties makes you fat).

It’s not entirely clear what we’re meant to do with this information. Divorce? Eat at separate times, ideally naked in front of a mirror (which, you will remember, was Gwyneth Paltrow’s canny dieting tip from a while back)?alternatively, we could just accept that being in a couple makes you lots of things that you were not expecting, many of them undesirable. For example:

Quite bossy

One half of the couple, usually female, will inevitably become quite bossy because the other half of the couple, usually male, is not pulling their weight or, as I like to put it, “behaving like a guest in a hotel”. The other half ’s attitude is: “Hmmm, nice. Now that I’m married there is always loo paper, the bath towel is always back on the towel rail, there’s Fever-tree tonic in the fridge, I could get used to this.” Inevitably, the half running the hotel will resort to barking instructions on the hoof: “No, NOW! NOW!” – and will become thought of as quite bossy and badtempered.

A speed drinker

You don’t get around to deciding who is driving home, in advance, then when you do you are able to say: “Well, I’ve had three glasses already (sad mistake face). Sorry about that.”

Much meaner with money and property

Previously, when you were single, you fancied yourself as being rather generous and easy-going. Now that you are living with someone extremely wasteful who will, for example, squirt half the contents of your La Roche-posay sun cream on to the sand (estimated value £30) and then put so much on His face He has to rub most of it off with a towel – you have learned to be mean with all kinds of things. Sun-cream (His is supermarket own brand); nail scissors (never come back, also hairbrush, bus pass, umbrella).

A micro manager (see bossy)

Once you have established that you are not, as you had assumed you would be, a highly functioning crack team who have everything covered between you, then you become an MM. You say: “I know you closed the dishwasher, but did you press the ‘on’ button?” The one who asks “When you put the flowers in the vase, were they all flowerheads up?” Not every couple is micro-managing at this level, granted, but there’s always some side-eyes checking going on, particularly in the kitchen.

A health Nazi

This one will frequently be the female who has the thankless task of trying to get her husband to take curcumin and other supplements to make up for terrible eating habits.

Tired all the time

It’s well known that sharing a bed means you will never have a decent night’s sleep again. Modern couples try to get around this by sleeping in tennis court-sized beds. But space is only part of the problem. The maxi bed does not solve snoring, one of you reading the phone in bed on the bright setting, or crashing about looking for Rennies. Being in a couple disrupts your sleep and, therefore, ages you.

A liar

How much you spent on the new framed picture. How much the jumpsuit cost (with clothes, you always round down). When you actually left home to get to the theatre. And He is lying about parking tickets, the dry cleaner being closed, the football tour to Berlin being the last one ever.

Being in a couple definitely makes you fat, too.

‘Now that you are living with someone wasteful, you have to be mean’