What I’ve learned in 50 years of marriage

My wife and I have never “done” wedding anniversaries. Neither of us can even remember the date, 50 years ago. The 15th, or 16th – it was Maundy Thursday, I think. And yet it now appears we’ve been married for half a century, a reasonable stretch of time from which to dredge fragments of wisdom.

Neither of us is the sentimental type. Hearts, flowers, Valentines, the merest hint of anything romantic, it’s all sarcastically euthanised in our house. We happened, as most British couples happen, by accident. She was sub-letting a room in Durham in 1973, I needed a place, the die was cast. I was 19, she was 25 – my girlfriend had nothing to worry about. I was moving in with a spinster.

We fell in love and got married in 1976. Not to declare our love before God but because it was more tax-efficient to be married than to remain single. Also, we would legally be one another’s next of kin, rather than our respective parents. In those days, your mum and dad weren’t your best mates, they were the reason you left Essex and landed somewhere 300 miles north as soon as you could.

I just told her this magazine wanted to know more about our relationship for its relaunch issue, and asked her to describe it. “Combative,” she said, a little too promptly. Maybe, but it’s been a long old ceasefire, mostly. There are many things to celebrate about our shared life. Economic stability, eventually, after endless remortgages, downsizing, overdrafts. Four uniquely miraculous grandchildren. The fact we’re still both here – not nothing given we’re both cancer survivors with plenty of ill-health side quests. Like the noble pair in Larkin’s An Arundel Tomb, we too have suffered decades of soundless damage. And, sorry kids, what will survive of us too will be love, as any inheritance will probably be gobbled up by privatised care. Happy anniversary, baby!

1. Time’s up. Fifty years trapped together in the same life is not as bad as it sounds. You’re both moving through time, negotiating the ravages of time, working out what the time is now the clocks have changed, whether it’s time for your meds, or bed, what’s the time, all the time. It’s comforting to keep time with someone.

2. Live and let live. Our credo, to which I would only add: “As you would be lived and let lived by.”

3. “Just our little joke.” Some people say that private in-jokes secretly shared in the company of others can bring you closer as a couple. To what, a suicide pact?

4. Emotional physics. What keeps two people together for half a century? Love, yeah, whatever, of course. But honestly the most powerful force in marriage, as elsewhere, is inertia.

5. Split shift. Romance doesn’t get the spuds peeled or the bathroom cleaned does it, sexual Valentine’s Day ad? A fair split of household chores, observed for decades, gives you a sense of justice which, considering you’ve both served a life sentence, is the least it can do.

6. Two halves. Our first 25 years were about getting on. Building a life, a family, a way up. The second 25 were more about a slow descent, a coming in to land. Agility, attractiveness, starting the descent now. The glide. Not giving up, just letting go, a bit.

7. Alone, together. Look, not everybody needs someone else to complete them. Rainer Maria Rilke said a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of their solitude. Yeah, that. Why contract out 50% of yourself to someone else? You’re not a local authority, not even in your own house.

8. Incompatibility. Compatibility is overrated. The more incompatible the better.

9. Musical differences. Fifty years together hasn’t resolved our musical compatibility. One day in 1973, I was playing the extremely hip Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band when she came in from work. “Fuck me,” she said. “Not this shit again.” I was playing it in the kitchen the other day; she arrived and said pretty much the same. Music That I Love And She Hates is a broad spectrum, eg serial music, hip-hop, “just piano” and – thrillingly, appallingly – the Beatles.

10. Same difference. “She looks the same to me now as the day we were married…” Does she mate, are you microdosing again? Stop pretending anyone looks the same after half a century of time’s ruthless slow-motion assault, after 50 years of gravity’s remorseless drag. You’ve both been lumbered with decades of aggregated biological failure. And yet, and yet, you’re still the same people inside. That’s what catches at the throat when you see her turn the corner. She doesn’t look the way she looked in her 20s. She’s an old lady now. But she absolutely is still your missus. The same person, incredibly.

11. Alternative reality. Solo life becomes unthinkable, why bother thinking about it?

12. Real alternative. OK you do think about it and when one of us dies the other one is getting a dog. And a cleaner.

13. Last words. Who knows what your last words will be? Short odds on, “We’re not shelling out £300 are you mad, just hold the ladder steady.” But I guarantee the last words I’ll hear as I drift away on my fentanyl-lofted throne of clouds will be my wife saying, “Where have I put my fucking glasses now?”

14. Give and cake. In the early 1970s I was a local newspaper reporter in County Durham. A golden wedding anniversary was the softest assignment – the interview ran on rails. The secret of a happy marriage was, unwaveringly, “Give and take.” At 20, I found the job comforting but tedious, even though they always gave you cake. Now I’m in my 70s and, like those long-wed, long-dead County Durham couples, I’ve put in the time. And I see now the modest but compelling truth. Give and take, that’s how it works. Accommodation and compromise I’d probably say now, like a wanker.

15. Thatcher’s bastards. Mutual love is one thing, but political hatred really keeps you going. We both came from right-wing, working-class homes. The moment we bought our first Habitat lampshade we became a leftist middle-class household. We’ve enthusiastically hated the Tories together, through the Rotary Club bullshit of Ted Heath, through Thatcher’s spiteful bonfire of the public sector, through every corrupt and incompetent gang of looting bastards since. Not sure “hate” covers it. It’s a genome-embedded molecular-level loathing, now cordially extended to Reform and their Nazi mates.

16. Hot balls. Our loathing of jazz was also an early meeting of minds. It’s prank music, come on. Jazz is just a series of self-validating neurotic episodes of wrongness enjoyed by a harmless community of musical trainspotters, who genuinely believe an alto sax solo is some kind of fucking manifesto. Well here’s mine: find someone who looks at the radio the way we both do when a Radio 3 presenter announces a “Dizzy Gillespie classic”.

17. The enemy within. If you’ve both trundled through cancer, well… Not sure exactly what point I’m making here beyond “survival deepens the relationship”, but it’s a reasonable point.

18. Old look. When you first get together you obviously wouldn’t change a thing about them. After a few decades you can offer constructive criticism on the other’s appearance without being hurtful. I once experimented with a flat cap, don’t ask me why, 1990s. One day we were out together when in one exasperated move she snatched it and hurled it straight into a litter bin. Good shot, first time.

19. Social criticism. Taking the piss out of people in the public eye is wholly acceptable, but bitching about people you both know is much more satisfying.

20. Bad news is no news. We’re constantly told that communication in a relationship is vital. Less examined is the choice not to communicate. A function of getting old together is a mutual reinforcement of the need to insulate against unspeakable cruelty. There are news stories we both know the other must have accidentally glimpsed mid-scroll which remain undiscussed. We’ve had a lifetime of horrible news that’s proved nothing except the relative rarity of depravity or horror and honestly, we’re fine thanks. We’re full up now.

21. Soliloquy. After a while, h aving someone else in the house allows you to talk to yourself. If they can theoretically hear you, even if they’re at the end of the garden and you’re upstairs, you’re not going mad.

22. Trivial pursuits. Half the point of being married for a combined stretch of 100 years is mastering the art of wasting time. Killing it. The couple that curdle together, Wordle together.

23. Off-script. Laughter isn’t the best medicine. Not even top 10. Trust me, I’m on an anthology of pills and injections that would bankrupt us if we were American. But yeah, two people laughing at the same joke is definitely the best endorphin shunt.

24. Jade empire. A long-term relationship is in a way a celebration of getting jaded together. It means you don’t have to be your own worst cynic.

25. Space age. “Let your partner have space…” Ha ha ha ha ha ha. WHAT?! I think you’ll find after a few years your partner is autonomously capable of finding space. Benign indifference is what you’re groping for. I couldn’t give a toss what shit telly she’s watching while I’m doing dinner.

26. Deep cut. Transgressions and betrayals may be forgiven in time, but the lies you told stay lodged in the heart like splinters of glass until you die.

27. Media war. There has always been a culture war stoked by the media. In the old days it was to fill space, now it’s all click bang wallop, but it’s been the same deal, from the Permissive Society to Wokeness. Scandalise, polarise. My wife and I came through the pre-internet culture war, which was a lot easier to understand: if in doubt, ask a lesbian.

28. The I-roll. “ME!” in perfect unison when ever someone on TV says “…the most upsetting thing for Miriam and I…” How hard is this? Take everyone but you out of the sentence: “upsetting for I” is wrong.

29. Eng be lit. Evolution of language is of course a dynamic process. We all dig the nimble ingenuity of English. But without old people like us groaning at the poor seamwork of most neologisms, it wouldn’t be so fun, would it? Yay, cringe has somehow slithered from verb to adjective. Why not? Cliché is suddenly an adjective and that was a straight-up noun. English, the language that grows itself smarter? Over our dead bodies. Oh wait, good point.

30. The whither forecast. Talking of verbs and nouns: weather. Life weathers you, together. It turns an old couple into a tactical meteorological unit. We can only come out together if the temperature’s above 7C. Each winter is harder than the last. If I get chronic bronchitis, or she does a hip, suddenly it’s AI Clippy going, “It looks like you’re overloading the NHS, can I help you with assisted dying?” When you’re young, weather’s just something you walk about in. When you’re old, strategic decisions have to be made. Yeah, it is reassuring to take a steadying arm when it’s a bit icy underfoot. Counter-thought: one of you goes down, you’re taking the other one with you.

31. Intensifier engine. The things that you love and she doesn’t stay exactly the same amount of loved (see 8, “The Beatles”). But time is an intensifier for the things you both love, which get lovelier each year. The grandchildren. The snooker. The all-clear letter. The demonstrable kindness of people. The garden.

32. Meh generation. It’s nice to be underwhelmed together. We abandon roughly nine out of 10 “must-see” TV shows, which all seem to be variants of the same three micro-pitches: super-rich ghost-people having existential crises on holiday; nothing dressed as porn; people in period dress doing modern swearing. Yeah, thanks, there’s a John le Carré on iPlayer.

33. You first. God, all this contemporary self-affirming ooze. “If you can’t love yourself, how the hell you gonna love somebody else, can I get an amen?” No you berk, you absolutely can’t. We’re from the old school of self-loathing. We’re lucky that anyone else puts up with us. Love someone else, it’s easier to process.

34. Other halves. The longer you stay together the more it plays into the narrative of the One True Love theory. Yeah, if you’re 10 years old, or clinically thick. Life is random. People fall into one another’s path, make a good couple, set up home together, put in a shift. Everybody secretly knows they could have done this with any number of vaguely right people. Destiny’s full of forked roads. An alternative Mr or Mrs Right might be living half a mile away. Unavailable Warm Marrieds In Your Area!

35. “Who cares” wins. We’ve had half a century together observing the rest of the human race and, comparing notes, we’re in broad agreement: most people are good. This validates a benign indifference (see 29) to randoms. Others in the queue, at the bus stop, in the train carriage, at the bar, on the doorstep, how you doing, could be worse, ha ha yeah, be lucky.

36. Let redacted dogs lie. In a world that prizes confessional self-promotion at high volume, silence is a pretty decent silver medal. I’m terrified of those screaming rows people have in popular culture. Real life, in my experience, isn’t a John Cassavetes film. That argument you had back in the 1970s about [REDACTED]. If you both lose your temper and it all comes tumbling out – shattering, irreversible truths about [REDACTED] – it’d be like a chainsaw felling in minutes a tree that’s been growing for generations. Give us the wounded sulk any day; there’s always an exit route from that.

37. Art brut. Contemporary art brings endless shared moments of joy to old couples. It’s immensely liberating to no longer feel obliged to stand unsarcastically in front of a pile of clothes trying to guess what You The Artist had in mind, or what You The Artist are wearing today instead. And no, we won’t watch your video, telling us crossly and at length what Naked Truth is all about. Let us simply laugh instead at your humourless bullshit.

38. Words fail. Time both erodes memory and impedes memory retrieval. Words disappear. More often now, one of us will pause before the blank space where a word should be. You’re a couple, so you’ve doubled your chances of remembering it. Finishing one another’s sentences isn’t “adorable”, it’s an attempt to postpone the approaching blank white wilderness.

39. The Ampersand. The longer a relationship goes on, the more significant the Ampersand becomes. This is the “and” that those nutty, armed American Christians insist should only join together “man” and “woman” in Godly union. But neither man nor woman is the important part. Who cares what nouns are either side of the Ampersand? The Ampersand hooks you together, whoever you are, gives you both someone to share your life with. The union itself becomes more important than either of you. Because the Ampersand, armed American Christians, is God.

40. The young ones. You watch one another getting older, as you both watch the world getting younger. Policemen really do look more tattooed and incompetent every year. Teachers look like very bright kids. Everyone under 30 was impossibly beautiful when we were in our 50s. Now, as we glide towards baffled oblivion, anyone south of 50 looks as though they belong on a red carpet.

41. Gonna be olden. It’s a lie that most old people hate young people. We don’t. Old people and young people mostly hate the middle-aged. Q: Are most arseholes men? A: Yes. Q: Are most of them aged between 30 and 55? A: Yes. We both admire, love, and would like to apologise to young people. It was so much cheaper to live in the 1970s than it is in the 2020s.

42. The doors. Getting old is a privilege and much better than the alternative. But you do hear, every few years, doors locking softly behind you one by one, with a click of finality. C igarettes, drugs, sex, booze, work. Whatever order they’re in, all doors close eventually. Here we are, en route to our second age of innocence, our Night Garden. Saluting young people from the other side of life, like Igglepiggle waving his blanket. Come on, old people. It’s time to go…

43. Coalescence of the willing. As you both near the end, it gets quieter. Your shared coherence slowly crumbles into a shared dreamscape of mute understanding.

44. A collapsed universe. And in the end the recollection of the start, as sharp as it has been for over 50 years. The comfortable wrongness of it all – I was 19, engaged to someone else. The sitting too close on the floor. The wine done in. The laughing together. The mutual attraction. The slow arc of her face towards mine. The beginning there, a moment ago.