Tell us what you think and you could win a signed copy of For Better For Worse by Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall. Jane (aka Granny Jane), mum of Hugh and big fan of MN, has followed up her Good Granny books with a light-hearted guide on how to have a successful marriage based on her own 47 years of happily married life and interviews with other couples.
We have five signed copies of For Better For Worse to give away. Every one who posts on this thread will have their name put into a hat and we'll pull five names out on Friday 5 February.
To get the thread going, Jane has contributed her own "Mumsnet top ten":
Daily domestic trivia can gradually erode a marriage or partnership: drip, drip, drip on a stone until you want to scream and probably do. Here are my suggestions for avoiding some of the flash-points.
In the kitchen
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Where to start? With us it's the dishwasher - for decades I would load it then seethe while Rob re-arranged everything. Now we've agreed he always loads and I unload. Agree division of chores in a way that makes best use of each person's skills and preferences.
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When he completes a simple chore, lay on the praise with a trowel, at least until you've established team spirit.
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Don't save a tablespoon of gravy or half a fish finger in the fridge until it grows fur on top - eat it or bin it. It's taken 45 years of Rob's nagging for me to learn this one.
The washing
- Never mind the pink underpants or the cashmere sweater shrunk to the size of a 12-year-old. It's the lone sock that causes most trouble. Rob has finally learned to buy six identical pairs, but here's a more radical solution: get him to wash his own.
In the car
- The map-reader (usually the woman) takes a lot of flack. A friend gave her husband a satellite navigation kit just in time, she said, to avoid divorce. Now when the car ends up at the end of a country lane with a bull staring over a gate, he can blame the Sat Nav rather than the Old Bat Nav.
Families and friends
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Make friends with your mother-in-law however difficult it may seem. It will pay dividends in terms of childcare and other practical help, and above all in terms of general harmony and happiness. She may be waiting for you to make the first move, so start now.
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"Neither party to a sacred union should run down, disparage or badmouth the other's former girls or beaux... Sweetheart-slurring is encouraged by a long spell of gloomy weather, too many highballs, hangovers and the suspicion that one's spouse is hiding, and finding, letters in a hollow tree..." James Thurber
Rules of engagement
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Of course you want to have The Last Word in every argument, but then he says "you always have to have the last word, don't you," and that's checkmate. So forget it.
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Prevent rows by having quality time together, preferably for a whole weekend. Step forward, mother and mother-in-law, to make this possible. Once a week is great, once a month OK, once a year better than nothing.
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See yourself through his eyes once in a while. Not quite perfect after all? Listen, too. Voice a tad shrill? Harping on the same old grievances? It's never too late to change.
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TOP TIP If I was allowed just one tip it would be, see the funny side - laughter is infectious, so don't take yourself too seriously.
Thank you to Jane and TIA for your posts. Could this be the definitive MN guide to ending marital trouble and strife? Yeh, right.