First, we had to fill in a simple questionnaire to ascertain the state of our
marriage, so that it can be plotted months later. On a scale of one to
seven, how satisfied do you feel with your relationship? Intimacy, love,
trust, passion and commitment are also measured this way.

Our scores were uniformly six or seven. So far so good. This is not because we
are insufferably smug, but because we have got better at being wed to each
other. We tied the knot far younger than many of our contemporaries and,
having been married for more than a decade, have muddled through and learnt
what works. I’m quite sure our scores would have been much lower 10 years
ago.

Next came the key part of Prof Finkel’s audit, which at first sounds very
basic. You each have to write an essay about a recent row you have had in as
dispassionate a way as possible – you are supposed to be taking the view of
a benevolent outsider.

This is harder than it sounds. Though we have plenty of rows, I couldn’t for
the life of me remember any details or even what our most recent one was
about. I feared that this is because I am fundamentally a bad husband, who
never listens and whose default response to any argument is to nod and say
“I’m sorry” a lot. I like to think, in fact, that it is because I am easily
able to erase the bad memories and focus on the good things. So, I wrote
about leaving my pants on the floor. My essay was deeply unilluminating. Not
a reflection on me, I hope? Though I dread to read Vic’s offering.

I admire the sentiment behind this study. Marriage is worth fighting for. But
one of the most heartening statistics published by the Office for National
Statistics is that the divorce rate has consistently fallen since it peaked
in the mid-1990s. Yes, it is still too high, but those that do marry are far
more likely to stick together than in the previous generation. I hope that I
am one of them.

This weekend we are off to a hotel to celebrate our 11th wedding anniversary.
The fact that I haven’t murdered any of my four children and am still
happily married is a triumph and worth celebrating in my book. And it is
proof that – in spite of whichever of my faults Vic has focused on – Prof
Finkel’s theory of marital deterioration can take a “downward trajectory”
running jump.

Harry Wallop

Victoria Sowerby: Would it not be healthier to discuss the best things
about the relationship?

Many of my rows with my husband are over his willingness to look like an idiot
in the pages of The Daily Telegraph. If he isn’t wearing a onesie, or
gurning for the camera with a spatula in hand, he is usually plagiarising
all my thoughts for his next “fun feature”.

We do, of course, have more serious rows. With four children, two house moves
and career ups and downs over the past decade, we have often raised our
voices and slammed doors. But the rows are invariably resolved. If not at
that moment, then certainly within 24 hours. And nearly all our issues
derive from one source: the exhaustion that comes with having four children
under the age of 10.

So, confident that it wouldn’t expose any fault lines, I was prepared to give
the “audit” a go.

Answering the survey questions was straightforward. The process of having to
write about myself in the third person, however, was not so easy. And having
to focus on the actions in the row, not the sentiments, as insisted upon by
the study, was near impossible. Most of our rows involve no action – just me
shouting at Harry about his inadequacies, while he stands there and agrees
that I am right.

The row I wrote about was very serious. Probably the most serious we have had
in the last few years. It was all to do with him going off to write a book
in his spare time, on top of his full-time job, while I brought up his
children, with very little acknowledgement from him of just how miserable
and boring that can be for the one left at home. But I don’t see how it
helps to go over this row with a fine-tooth comb. We have moved on.

Indeed, I have a nagging concern that a thrice-yearly marriage audit is a
potentially toxic exercise. You risk either reigniting the row, or – worse –
mentioning some throwaway detail that the other partner ends up attaching
far too much significance to.

It is possible to say too much. I am deeply suspicious of most forms of
counselling, though I appreciate it has its place when your own attempts to
hold it together have been unsuccessful. But launching a pre-emptive strike
on what you consider to be a successful marriage is madness. My therapy is
going off to have coffee a few times a week with other full-time and
part-time mothers. That’s where all the flaws of our husbands are discussed
in great detail. But by working it through with this very good group of
friends, I don’t need to bring it home with me again.

And the most fundamental flaw with the “marriage audit” is neither the
psychology nor the American confessional culture that has informed it. It is
the negativity. Rather than sit down and dissect your rows, would it not be
healthier to discuss the best things about the relationship? Or, for that
matter, go out for dinner, or even away for the weekend, and remind
yourselves why you got together in the first place?

I look forward to doing that this weekend a great deal more than writing any
more “social-psychological intervention” essays.