Mr and Mrs

At a dinner party recently, the host proposed that the four assembled couples play the game Mr and Mrs. The idea is that each couple is asked the same questions, and the winner is whichever couple gives the most matching answers.

This game of Mr and Mrs was particularly high stakes because there was actually an amazing prize on offer — a night in an upmarket Dublin hotel. I was determined to win the prize as I have lately produced another child, so getting away for a night was more than luxury, it was practically medicinal. When I realised, however, that the dreaded Mr and Mrs game was all that stood between me and a night alone in a hotel room (I would not be inviting Himself to join me), I was crestfallen.

We are notoriously bad at this game. The last time we played, we scored just one question out of 25 right. What is my favourite movie? Easy. The modern classic Con Air.

The Mr and Mrs game is a depressing game for couples like Himself and me. We are not one of those united, mutually supportive couples, forever finishing each other’s sentences. We are a couple forever at war — merciless mocking is the order of the day, rather than being in any way knowledgeable about the other one’s feelings or likes and dislikes.

The game began with a multiplechoice round: How would your partner describe themselves? a) Clean freak; b) Reasonably tidy; c) A bit messy; or d) I live like an animal. When Himself and I both described the other as “d) I live like an animal”, an epic domestic broke out, causing our companions to up the ante on the wine to counter the awkwardness.

Himself is afflicted with a bizarre, very focused cleaning agenda that means one random shelf in the kitchen will be spotless and arranged to Rain Man degrees of order, but does not extend to putting nappies in the bin after changing a child. I call it localised cleaning (LC).

LC is not helpful in the grand scheme of a household; the worst bit is that Himself thinks he is the tidy one. I am under no delusions: I know I live like an animal — a lazy cat, perhaps — and so make no claims to be good at housework.

Lately, in secret, I enlisted the services of a cleaner to uphold my end of the chores. I paid her cash from my secret ‘running away’ account. It was all very Tinker Tailor . . . until I learned quite publicly at this party that Himself knew all about my bit of cleaner on the side. “Do you think I don’t know the difference between your tidying and someone else’s tidying?” he erupted, as the others nervously gulped back their drinks.

In the end, after the outing of the secret cleaner and running-away account, the group consensus was that Himself and I needed the hotel voucher more than anyone else, if only for the sake of our marriage.

This lamb dish is the only mess Himself and I can agree on, and the plates are always spotlessly clean!