1 week ago
4
February 14, 2026 — 5:30am
What would I know about love, having lived with the same person for – give me a moment – that’s right, 45 years? Well, I reckon plenty.
Here’s a checklist of the things that, in my experience, make love more likely to last.
1: Opposites may attract, but similarity keeps you together. Find someone who has the same attitude to money and to children, as well as the same sense of humour. Other differences can be navigated, but not – generally – these.
2: Understand that your happiness is inextricably bound up in their happiness. The idea that you should take pleasure from winning an argument makes no sense. Assuming your aim is your own happiness, you’ve just defeated yourself.
3: Don’t let yourself go. Well, not completely. Of course, you are both going to age; you’ll develop limps, squints and dents. But nothing excuses chewing with your mouth open. Not when your beloved is within earshot.
4: Ditto, anything to do with the trimming of toenails.
5: Ditto, flossing.
6: Give each other space. You don’t have to like all their friends, or all their enthusiasms. An occasional absence makes the heart grow fonder, even if it’s just a weekend apart.
7: Understand that love isn’t always expressed in poetry. Or flowers. Or even tender words. Sometimes, its most eloquent expression comes from quietly putting out the laundry, taking the car to be serviced and making Tuesday night dinner.
8: Sleeping in separate beds, should your home be large enough to allow it, is not a rejection of romance. It’s a rejection of snoring. It represents the prioritisation of a good night’s sleep over all other matters, in a way that makes sense to anyone over about 25 years of age. And if it’s good enough for the royal family, it’s good enough for you and me.
9: Take pleasure in the fact that others find your beloved attractive, in all sorts of ways. Why wouldn’t they find them attractive? Your beloved is a wonder. Lucky you.
Avoid such phrases as ‘you are just like your father’ or ‘you are just like your mother’, even when true.
10: Try to not pay attention when your partner is engaged in performing a task they find nigh-on impossible. In my case: reverse-parking the car, fixing the leaking cistern in the toilet, hanging a picture on the living room wall, cooking anything complex, putting on my pants without sitting down first… Well, you get the idea. Don’t look!
11: If, by any chance, your beloved has a whole group of people laughing at one of their anecdotes, do try to disguise the fact that you’ve heard it before, usually 27 times (and that’s just in the last month).
12: If playing the card game Five Hundred with your beloved as your partner, try to avoid the phrase “what sort of idiot bids eight hearts without the right bower?” even when true.
13: Avoid such phrases as “you are just like your father” or “you are just like your mother”, even when true.
14: The promise is “in sickness and in health”. Be strong when they need you to be strong.
15: Let him cook kippers on his birthday. (Maybe this is just me.)
16: Bend to their will. Not in things that matter, but in things that don’t. If your beloved wants the Glad Wrap to be placed in the second drawer down, even though – as everyone knows – it should be in the third drawer down, the only sensible response is: “Sure thing. Good idea.”
17: It’s the thought that counts. How wonderful they threw your stuff in the washing machine on the super-hot cycle, even if all the garments were in a bucket you keep for “hand wash only”.
18: It’s the thought that counts. How wonderful they ironed your silk shirt with the iron on the setting for “linen”.
19: Buy new underwear at least every five years. It doesn’t have to be sexy. But it shouldn’t be saggy. This is another way of saying: “Don’t take your beloved for granted.”
20: The passenger in a car, in truth, has the right to comment on your driving. If they don’t feel safe, they should feel able to say so. And the driver should then do all that is necessary to make sure they feel safe.
21: Arguments are usually about nothing. Try to defuse rather than escalate.
22: No one’s perfect. If you believe you live with someone with zero annoying characteristics, check under the hood. They are probably a Japanese nursing home robot. If the worst they do is leave the lid off the toothpaste, you happen to be living with a saint.
23: You can’t ask someone to stop doomscrolling on their smartphone if you can’t stop doomscrolling on yours.
24: Clean up after yourself. Your beloved is not your servant.
25: Take joy, whenever possible, in their good qualities.
