Don’t believe that an affair is the solution
BEWARE the bored agony aunts and desperate so- called “relationship experts” queueing up to assure us that having an affair can be the salvation of our marriages. You know the sort of stuff. We’ve all read it. Playing away, they tell us, can be a cry for help, a way of drawing attention to frustration, inertia and lack of excitement. If your Other Half commits adultery, they assure us, it doesn’t spell the end of your marriage.
Instead, they insist, we should harness the information and use it to breathe new life into our tired old partnership. Let the affair be the catalyst for change. Bury jealousy, betrayal, anger and heartbreak and focus instead on a renaissance, cover yourself in chocolate sauce, invest in a new negligee, build on the affair as a wakeup call and move swiftly on.
What planet are these people on? As the news breaks that Ryan Giggs’s longsuffering wife Stacey has finally demanded a divorce after doing her utmost to keep the marital show on the road despite revelations that he’d been sleeping with his own sister- in- law, it’s time to face facts. Affairs are the death knell to marriages and long- term relationships.
The reason is so obvious it hurts. The tissue of lies that must be woven in order to duck out of home life and end up in some carnal tangle with another man or woman are so complex and pervasive your spouse realises absolutely every vestige of trust is gone.
The special private sacrament that binds the two of you in an impenetrable bond is destroyed. Who can forget the late Diana, Princess of Wales, telling Martin Bashir “There were three of us in this marriage”?
For poor/ rich Stacey Giggs what should have been a romantic idyll built for two has been shared with a rolling cast of waitresses and models.
However deep her love for her husband, however strong her desire to keep the marriage together for the sake of the children, Stacey is stymied every step of the way. She has reached saturation point and can no longer pretend to confuse public humiliation and being lied to with love.
It’s alleged that Stacey’s divorce settlement will make her a very rich woman. Casualties of divorce will know a cheque, however fat, is scant compensation for the destruction of hopes and dreams.
Next time you hear someone who should know better holding forth about the “healing powers” of extra- marital affairs, look them dead in the eye, say: “Stuff and nonsense!” and stick like glue to your marriage vows.
DARING INTERIOR DESIGN IS NOT FOR EVERYONE
GORDON WATSON, soon to be seen on the small screen in The Extraordinary Collector, is a renowned art dealer who famously supplied Elton John, Mick Jagger and Madonna with exotic works of art. Watson adores the flamboyant and dramatic and has no time for designers who work in 50 shades of taupe. “People should do what they want but be strong, don’t be tepid – and don’t be taupe,” he says.
Of course he ignores the fact that many of us don’t have the courage or confidence to know what we want until we’ve seen it on someone else’s wall or upholstering someone else’s sofa. We stick to the magnolias and greiges because we’re scared to make expensive purchases we may swiftly come to detest. We feel safe with oyster, beige and slate. We know no one will enter our home, judge and find us lacking. It’s all very well covering your floor in zebra print if you happen to be Sir Elt or Sir Mick. If they get sick of the look they can afford to summon an interior designer to change everything. The rest of us are stuck with our curtains for decades.
That’s why we don’t opt for emerald with turquoise pompoms. Though, for the record, I do have a lipstick pink kitchen and it gladdens my heart every time I boil an egg.
one of the most thrilling announcements of recent times is the news from Cornwall’s Lost Gardens of Heligan that a “micropropagation” project has enabled horticulturists to reproduce the exact DNA of rhododendron bushes originally presented to the Gardens in 1851? Genetic cloning has enabled plants on the verge of extinction to be resurrected but in a disease- free incarnation. Let’s revel in the remarkable genius of genetic cloning and abandon our ill- informed prejudice against genetically modified crops.