Wedded bliss by remote control
AFTER five years of marriage I can freely admit that I still have fantasies about my husband.
I had my favourite one last night as we watched television together, it was the one where he is constantly flicking the channels and I smile sensuously as I remove the TV remote from his hand and beat him senseless with it.
Ladies please don't deny that you have not had this fantasy too, if not, then you are obviously in a new relationship and he's keeping up the pretence that he likes soaps and Celebrity Mr & Mrs. Don't believe for one moment that this trend of the female being in charge of the remote will last, once the sparkle begins to fade from the romance (we're usually talking after the initial 18 month period). Believe me it's TV wars from here on in.
I remember vividly being at a wedding some years ago and the vicar likening marriage to a couple both owning a motorbike. I couldn't really see where he was going with this, he left a pregnant pause then continued, 'when a couple marry, they sell their motorbikes and get a car and journey together on the road of life.' Mmm, I pondered, this was probably not the vicar's best semantic moment of his career, though I could see where he was coming from. However much recent research on marriage and successful relationships reveal, separateness now appears to be the key to romantic happiness.
Actors Michael Caine and Catherine Zeta Jones both happily married to their spouses, claim the secret to a happy marriage is separate bathrooms. Many young unmarried couples are now what are known as LATs (living apart together) where they refuse to share a home but are deeply committed to each other, and some married couples have found living in the same home not as romantic as hoped and prefer to have separate abodes yet are still happy and exclusive in their marriage.
When it comes to TV preferences, most couples are not cruising in the same wedding-car of bliss. Men seem to love wall to wall sport with the odd injection of Top Gear. I sit marvelling at the silliness of this programme and wonder when any of the three presenter are ever going to get a hair cut.
My husband has the capacity to watch Sky Sport continuously, this is accompanied by that male affliction of losing the power of speech whilst viewing and dare I attempt conversation I either get silence or a grunt. It's all so wonderfully Caveman-esque and I am thus instantly confined to my own isolation booth.
According to Peggy and Bill Turpin, Britain's longest married couple who have been wed for 77 years, the secret of a happy marriage is separate televisions. He loves football and she Midsomer Murders, so they both get their way without the celebrated give and take that a successful marriage is meant to be founded on.
Some experts think that man's incessant channel hopping could be tied into courtship behaviour; man is the hunter and woman the nester.
Men are playing the field and women are supposedly looking for commitment; a man cruises through TV world constantly looking for something better, where as a woman will give a programme a chance and wait to see what develops.
As men surf and women suffer, the small screen doesn't appear to hold anything very appealing to either sex, yet still we continue to wage viewing war rather than look at each other.
Being of a delicate disposition there are programmes that I can't abide to watch, an example being Silent Witness which is precisely what most females are with regard to male channel-zapping.
These days it's apparent that watching TV often entails fighting, foul language and violence; and that's just deciding who gets the remote!
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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