Taylor Bradford: If you want a happy marriage, let hubby win every argument
sHE has been married for more than 50 years and once wrote a guide called How To Be The Perfect Wife.
And yesterday best-selling novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford revealed the key to her successful marriage – she simply responds ‘yes, that’s fine’ when she and husband Robert disagree.
The Leeds-born author, who married the film producer in 1963, said: ‘We’ve had our bumpy rides – he’s very strong-willed. We argued more when we were younger, because I’ve learnt it’s better to say, ‘‘Yes, that’s fine’’.’
Mrs Taylor Bradford, 83, added: ‘My goddaughter once said to me ‘‘ How do you deal with men?’’ And I said, ‘‘Well, look, they’re not like women at all so the best thing is to say yes and then do your own thing’’.
‘I’m very acquiescent, I walk away but there are days when I could strangle him. But everybody who has been married a long time feels that.’
The couple, who do not have children, live in Manhattan.
Mrs Taylor Bradford, who has just published her 31st novel, said her success is partly down to a supportive husband and admits she may not have been such a prolific writer had she had a family to bring up. she told Hello! magazine: ‘I had two miscarriages and never got pregnant again. There was one moment when I thought, ‘‘should we adopt?’’ but I was in my early 40s and we were very fussy.’ she added: ‘I’ve always had a very optimistic nature, my glass is always half full, so I thought, ‘‘It hasn’t happened but I’ve got Bob’’.’
Mrs Taylor Bradford said her german- born husband had championed her career even before she became famous. ‘I never thought that [I was talented], until Bob said to somebody, ‘‘Barbara has a gift – she was born with it’’.’
Her first blockbuster, A Woman Of substance in 1979, made her a multimillionaire but she is determined to keep working because ‘it keeps my brain going’.
she said that after going through the menopause at 43 she found a ‘post-menopausal zest’.
‘I have this energy, drive and ambition most people don’t have at my age,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to offend anybody here but I find that I’m more on a level intellectually with women who work because I think you have to be sharp and on your toes.’
Her latest novel, The Cavendon Luck, is the third in a trilogy about a family and their stately home.
‘Days when I could strangle him’