Dave and I went through a rough patch after we left Number 10, reveals Sam Cam
DAVID and Samantha Cameron hit a rough patch in their marriage after they left Downing Street, she has revealed.
Work schedules and the pressures of parenthood meant they weren’t ‘getting on very well’ after the Tory leader’s resignation following the 2016 Brexit referendum.
But a three-day trip to New York without their three children allowed them to spend time together as a couple and put them ‘back on track again’, she said. It helped relieve the pressure which had built up on their relationship. In a rare interview, Mrs
‘Not getting on very well’
Cameron said it was the only time in 24 years of marriage that the relationship had come under strain.
‘When [David] was travelling a lot, about a year after he left Downing Street, and I was working really hard on my business and it was one of the few times in our marriage when I just thought, “I’m just not sure we are getting on very well, this is really weird”,’ she told the Happy Mum, Happy Baby podcast.
‘And actually we just went away for three days together, away from the children. We’re not very good at going away with each other but we did go to New York for three days.
‘I have to say, we came back and it was amazing how a few days on your own somewhere else, you know going round art galleries and restaurants that had nothing to do with children put us straight back on track again. So now I look forward to that time when we can spend more time together travelling or going to restaurants.’
Since the family left Downing Street in 2016 Mrs Cameron, 49, has launched the women’s fashion line Cefinn, which caters to ‘multitasking urban women’.
She admitted working hard to expand her business meant she was required to make sacrifices. ‘I think you can’t when you’re working – you have to choose between work and other stuff and your children,’ she said.
‘So you can’t do everything you can’t kind of work and have a social life and go off on holiday with your husband on your own and be a parent. I choose to work and be a parent, and not the other stuff.’
The hour-long episode of the podcast, which was recorded during the coronavirus lockdown earlier this year, focused on Mrs Cameron’s experiences as a mother and what she had learned from her childhood. She said her children Nancy, 16, Arthur, 14, and Florence, ten, ‘were at that point when they are trying to fly the nest’, so lockdown had been a positive experience.
The family have spent the time at their home near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire. Mrs Camerson also revealed that her husband, 53, who is known for his fondness for cooking, had pledged to make a meal for the family every evening during lockdown.