This is not the advice that The Guardian’s agony aunt is giving but to adopt a point made by one of the Greek shipping billionaires to his second – or perhaps third – wife, time to get another one:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] I’ve been married for 10 years and love my husband. He is kind, great with the kids and hard-working. But his humour is generally based on quotes from comedy sketches (often reciting the entire sketch) and long anecdotes that get triggered by a word. If someone is talking about cake, it’s always, “Here is the funny 10-minute cake anecdote.” It’s how his whole family communicate. I find myself increasingly irritated by how these anecdotes and quotes from comedy shows dominate time with our friends and family. When he doesn’t rely on these fallback jokes, he can be really witty and make me laugh. But when he tells the same stories again, I find him less attractive. [/perfectpullquote]A man only gains one set of stories to tell, one set of experiences, as he crosses life’s paths. Wives are not two a penny, not in Christianity, but they are replaceable. The answer therefore to the wife not liking the stories anymore is a new wife, not new stories.
Harsh possibly but impeccably fair.
What’s the odds this bint has annoying habits of her own?
The Times Magazine has a piece about her many failed dates written by a 55-year-old divorcée. It never occurs to her to wonder whether there might be any fault to be found at her end.
“What’s the odds this bint has annoying habits of her own?”
Well for a start she reads the Grauniad.