If you cheat on your partner, it’s probably about more than just sex

Phillipa Perry in The Guardian

According to a study published this week, the likelihood of people cheating on their partners rises if they are financially dependent on them – and especially if they are male. From the research carried out by a Connecticut sociology professor, Christin Munsch, it seems that men still expect to be breadwinners in the family, and that they can still feel emasculated when their female partners make more money. Old scripts die hard, it seems.

Babies and toddlers, as anyone who has lived in close proximity to one will know, are not always terribly good at articulating what they feel, but they are very good at acting out their emotions: they bite, they scream, they lie on the floor and beat their fists and generally try to squirm out of situations that don’t appeal to them. We adults do our best to put into words how they are feeling so that they will eventually learn to talk about their emotions, which in therapy-speak we would call “processing feelings”. If you don’t learn how to process feelings, you tend to carry on “acting out”. We don’t dispute that when a baby throws his toys out of the pram, he is actually doing his best to show how he feels.

A man or woman who has an extramarital fling is also very possibly doing their best to manage their feelings by acting out and having an affair. It can be hard to start a conversation with a spouse who is doing their best to provide for the family about how dissatisfied you are with the lack of meaning in your life, about your envy, or your boredom. You don’t want to appear ungrateful. You don’t want to rock the boat.

When unpicking the fallout of affairs in couples counselling, quite often the person who has had the affair says things like, “it just happened”, “it didn’t mean anything”, “it wasn’t anything to do with you”, “I was drunk”, or “it was just a one-night stand”. The financially dependent party might wish they didn’t feel how they feel, and try very hard to push what seem like ungrateful feelings away. But even if they do try to process how they are feeling with their partner, that partner might find it understandably hard to listen to and easy to dismiss. Feelings don’t go away just because we want them to, and unconsciously we look for a way to deal with them.

So when a distraught couple is in the counselling room and the so-called guilty party is saying “it didn’t mean anything”, the counsellor might try to help them find out what it really did mean. It’s probably true that the straying partner does not prefer their one-night stand to their long-term lover, but it might mean that they do have unresolved issues with their partner, that they could not find a way to articulate or have heard. And the so-called innocent party may have even contributed to the event by not being sufficiently open and sympathetic to their partner’s feelings. Too often people in a relationship do not want to listen to their partner’s woes because they feel that means they are to blame, or that they have to fix them, but actually, being heard non-defensively and sympathetically goes a long way to restoring equilibrium.

 An affair is often an enactment of some deep, pushed away resentment. The fling can seem to temporarily cure feelings of an imbalance or a lack of meaning. This is but one explanation for something complicated that probably has many determining factors. It may be that the stay-at-home wife or husband is someone with attachment issues. For example there are people who seem to always need to have a lover as well as a partner because they dare not rely on just one person in case that person abandons them. This situation may be heightened if they are financially reliant on their partner. Such a situation can arise from early attachment issues with their first primary caregiver. Likewise some people feel they need secrets, otherwise they fear merging with their spouse. This feeling may be heightened when their spouse seems to have a stronger identity than they do.

There are probably as many reasons for why people act out in the form of an affair as there are people, but Munsch’s research does show us that inequality between partners can be a problem, and it’s something worth considering in any relationship.

She took a year off from her marriage to sleep with strangers. What could go wrong? The Wild Oats Project Review

Carlos Lozada in The Independent

Get ready for “The Wild Oats Project”. And not just the book. Get ready for “The Wild Oats Project” phenomenon — the debates, the think pieces, the imitators and probably the movie. Get ready for orgasmic meditation and the Three Rules. Get ready for “My Clitoris Deals Solely in Truth” T-shirts.

Robin Rinaldi, a magazine journalist living in San Francisco by way of Scranton, Pa., initially wasn’t sure she wanted children, but she knew that Scott, her stoic Midwestern husband, did not. Over time, Rinaldi decided a baby would add purpose to their lives, but Scott wouldn’t change his mind. “I wanted a child, but only with him,” she explains. “He didn’t want a child but wanted to keep me.” When Scott opted for a vasectomy, she demanded an open marriage.

“I refuse to go to my grave with no children and only four lovers,” she declares. “If I can’t have one, I must have the other.”

If you’re wondering why that is the relevant trade-off, stop overthinking this. “The Wild Oats Project” is the year-long tale of how a self-described “good girl” in her early 40s moves out, posts a personal ad “seeking single men age 35-50 to help me explore my sexuality,” sleeps with roughly a dozen friends and strangers, and joins a sex commune, all from Monday to Friday, only to rejoin Scott on weekends so they can, you know, work on their marriage.

The arrangement is unorthodox enough to succeed as a story, and in Rinaldi’s telling it unfolds as a sexual-awakening romp wrapped in a female-empowerment narrative, a sort of Fifty Shades of Eat, Pray, Love. “I wanted to tell him to f— me hard but I couldn’t get the words out of my mouth” is a typical Rinaldi dilemma. At the same time, she constantly searches for “feminine energy” or her “feminine core” or for a “spiritual practice guided by the feminine.

But more than empowering or arousing, this story is depressing. Rinaldi just seems lost. Still sorting through the psychological debris of an abusive childhood, she latches on to whatever guru or beliefs she encounters, and imagines fulfillment with each new guy. She still rushes to Scott whenever things gets scary (a car accident, an angry text message), yet deliberately strains their union beyond recovery. “At any cost” are the operative words of the subtitle.

Robin and Scott agree to three rules — “no serious involvements, no unsafe sex, no sleeping with mutual friends” — that both go on to break. He finds a steady girlfriend, while Robin violates two rules right away. “In truth, I was sick of protecting things,” she writes about going condom-free with a colleague at a conference. “I wanted the joy of being overcome.”

The men and women she hooks up with — some whose names Rinaldi has changed, others too fleeting to merit aliases — all blur into a new-age, Bay Area cliche. Everyone is a healer, or a mystic, or a doctoral student in feminist or Eastern spirituality. They’re all verging on enlightenment, sensing mutual energy, getting copious action to the sounds of tribal drums. The project peaks when she moves into OneTaste, an urban commune where “expert researchers” methodically stroke rows of bare women for 15 minutes at a time in orgasmic meditation sessions (“OM” to those in the know). “Everyone here was passionate,” Rinaldi writes. “Everyone had abandoned convention.”

Rinaldi holds little back, detailing her body’s reactions along the way. At first she is upset that she can’t feel pleasure as quickly as other women, but she finally decides she’s glad that her “surrender didn’t happen easily, that it lay buried and tethered to the realities of each relationship.” Her clitoris, although “moody,” was also “an astute barometer. . . . It dealt solely in truth.”

And truth often comes in tacky dialogue. “Your breasts are amazing,” one of her younger partners tells her. “You should have seen them in my twenties,” Rinaldi boasts. His comeback: “You’re cocky. I dig that.” (Fade to dirty talk.) When they do it again months later, he thanks her in the morning. “Something happens when I’m with you,” he says. “I feel healed.” I’m sure that’s exactly what he feels.

Rinaldi can’t seem to decide why she’s doing all this. The project is her “rebellion.” Or “a search for fresh, viable sperm.” Or a “bargaining chip.” Or “an elaborate attempt to dismantle the chains of love.” Or just a “quasi-adolescent quest for god knows what.”

If exasperation could give you orgasms, this book would leave me a deeply satisfied reader.

One of her oldest friends calls her out. “How is sleeping with a lot of guys going to make you feel better about not having kids?” she asks. Rinaldi’s answer: “Sleeping with a lot of guys is going to make me feel better on my deathbed. I’m going to feel like I lived, like I didn’t spend my life in a box. If I had kids and grandkids around my deathbed, I wouldn’t need that. Kids are proof that you’ve lived.” It’s a bleak and disheartening rationale, as though women’s lives can achieve meaning only through motherhood or sex.

For all her preoccupation with feminine energy, Rinaldi seems conflicted over feminism. “I would die a feminist,” she writes of her collegiate activism, “but I was long overdue for some fun.” Later, she pictures women’s studies scholars judging her submission fantasies, and frets over “those Afghan women hidden under their burqas” who could be “beaten or even killed right now for doing what I was so casually doing.” But when she finds a sexual connection with a woman who backs away because of “emotional issues,” Rinaldi channels her inner alpha male: “I was drawn to her body but shrunk back when she expressed unfettered feeling. . . .  It only took sleeping with one woman to help me understand the behavior of nearly every man I’d ever known.”

When the year runs out, Rinaldi returns to Scott, even though she soon starts an affair with a project flame. She’s no longer so upset about the vasectomy, regarding it as a sign that Scott can stand up for himself (though it may also mean she now cares less about him, period). No shock that post-project, their chemistry is off, and when Rinaldi makes a casual reference to their time apart, Scott finally explodes. “Do you know how many nights I cried myself to sleep when you moved out!?” he asks. “Do you care about anyone’s feelings but your own!?” She was “too stunned to reply.” But the fate of this marriage, revealed in the final pages, is anything but stunning.

“These are the sins against my husband,” Rinaldi recounts. “Abdicating responsibility, failing to empathize with him, cheating and lying.” After blaming him for so long, “in the end, I was the one who needed to ask forgiveness.”

In a rare moment of heartbreaking subtlety, the book’s dedication page simply says “For Ruby,” the name Rinaldi had imagined for a baby girl. Except, “there is no baby,” she writes at the end. “Instead there is the book you hold in your hands.”

And that is a frustrating book, with awkward prose, a perplexing protagonist and too many eye-rolling moments. Yet it is also a book I see launching book-club conversations and plenty of pillow talk — not just about sex and marriage, but about the price and possibility of self-reinvention. You don’t have to write a great work to cause a great stir.

Does Rinaldi reinvent herself? She survives the aftershocks and even seems to discover some happiness, however fragile she knows it to be. So maybe she needed this after all. Or maybe sometimes “empowerment” is just another word for self-absorption.

How economists view love, marriage, and Valentine’s Day

Pramit Bhattacharya in Live Mint

Can the dismal science of economics throw light on the seemingly irrational phenomenon of love? For a long time, economists did not consider love to be within the ambit of their study, and ignored it altogether even as they used the economic lens to study other esoteric subjects such as crime and fertility. The neglect of love ended in the 1970s, when the Nobel winning economist Gary Becker for the first time laid out a framework to analyse love and marriage in a series of research papers. 

Using simple economic tools and high school algebra, Becker showed how seemingly irrational life choices and decisions could in fact be explained by rational choice theory. Becker’s analysis was based on two simple principles. First, given that marriage is almost always voluntary, either by the couples or their parents, the theory of preferences can explain marriage and couples (or their parents) can be expected to derive more satisfaction (or higher utility) from being married than from remaining single. Second, Becker held that a market in marriages can be presumed to exist since many men and women compete as they seek mates. Each person tries to find the best mate subject to market conditions. 

Based on these two principles, Becker draws out a theory of marriage that says that each person will tend to pair with someone with whom the chances of maximizing their household production of goods and services are the highest. The set of household goods and services include tangible goods the market provides as well as non-market goods such as shared pastimes, or the joys of raising children. The couple’s level of satisfaction is determined both by market and non-market earnings. But, given that time and effort spent on raising market earnings can diminish non-market earnings, each couple uses economic principles to allocate the scarce resource of time. 

Becker argued that the division of labour within the family is driven by the differences in market earnings, which in turn are determined by the marginal productivity of the two partners. The partner with a higher wage then specializes in the production of market goods and services, while the partner with the lower wage specializes in the production of non-market goods and services. Other things being equal, a high-earning male is more likely to marry a low-earning female and vice-versa. Of course, if women are perceived to have a comparative advantage in the production of non-market goods (such as those involved in raising children), it is likely that the marriage market equilibrium will tend to have many more pairs where men rather than women are the sole wage earners. 

While spouses are likely to differ in market earnings, both theory and empirical evidence suggested likes tend to attract more when it comes to other attributes such as education or physical attractiveness, wrote Becker. He argued such attributes as education or beauty are complementary inputs in the production of non-market goods and services whereas wage income could be substituted by one partner for the other. The lack of complementary attributes could well explain a significant chunk of separations among couples, Becker hypothesized. 

The gains from marriage are determined by how the division of labour occurs. If a lot of effort is expended on policing whether a partner is performing his or her assigned role, then the net gains to the couple will be relatively less (the gains are essentially reduced because of transaction costs). The gains also depend on whether a sizeable fraction of the output generated after marriage can be jointly shared. Love accentuates the gains from marriage because each partner then cares about the satisfaction (or utility function) of the other. Consequently, with love, transaction costs are lowered and the gains from marriage increase. Love also increases the likelihood of increased production of shared family goods, thereby raising the gains from marriage further. 

Becker was among the first economic imperialists who extended the reach of economics to analyse complex social behaviours that were considered the exclusive domain of sociology. Social scientists initially ignored, then mocked, and finally began accepting some of Becker’s key insights into the nature of marriage. Later work by economists and sociologists have refined, extended and, in some cases, revised Becker’s framework. 

A 1997 review essay by economist Yoram Weiss of Tel-Aviv University succinctly summarizes some of the key economic insights into marriage. Weiss lists four key economic reasons for marriage. First, division of labour after marriage tend to raise joint gains. Second, with imperfect credit markets, marriage can solve credit intermediation problems, with one partner investing in the other. For instance, if both partners work but one has a greater ability to earn, it may be profitable for the partner with the lower ability to earn to fund his or her partner’s education while he or she takes care of home expenses. Such arrangements are indeed common in the modern world. Thirdly, marriage leads to the production of shared family goods (more technically, public goods, which are non-rivalrous and non-excludable). Finally, marriage leads to risk-pooling when two partners have uncertain but different sources of income. 

An influential 1999 study of cohabiting couples by sociologists Julie Brines and Kara Joyner extended Becker’s framework of married couples to analyse the behaviour of people living together. The duo analysed data on both married and cohabiting couples to find that although there was some evidence pointing towards specialization among married couples, the evidence was weak. 

There was no evidence to suggest specialization among cohabiting couples. On the contrary, live-in relationships tended to be durable when both partners shared equally in domestic work. Unlike married couples who have a more collectivist approach, cohabiting couples tend to display a more individualist streak. Hence, cohabiting couples tend to balance their individual interests by basing their behaviour on the principle of equality. 

More interestingly, the chances of a break-up were far higher among cohabiting couples than among married ones when women earned substantially more than men. In contrast, the chances of a break-up are much smaller when a wife begins to earn more than her husband. While cohabitation seems to be based on the premise of equality and rejects traditional gender roles, it is not immune to them, the study suggests. It is marriage that seems to withstand unorthodox economic power relations better. 

“Cohabitation draws part of its appeal from an image that promises greater flexibility and experimentation,” wrote Brines and Joyner. “In short, it bespeaks few ‘rules.’ For a relationship to persist, however, some operating principle must mediate the tension between the interests of the parties involved. For husbands and wives, the marriage contract helps to manage these interests, encourages joint investment, and permits some flexibility around the norm of male providership…. For cohabitors, uncertainty and implied contracts intensify the tension between the interests of the two partners and place greater stress on a bargaining principle that is difficult to adhere to over time. Thus, we find that breaking the rule in an arrangement ‘without rules’ is more disruptive than any comparable violation in marriage.” 

As Weiss pointed out in her essay, economics alone is not enough for marital analysis. Very often non-economic considerations do play a dominant role in romantic relationships. Yet, economics can provide valuable insights into the nature of relationships, which together with observations from other disciplines such as sociology can feed into a unified theory of relationships. 

The power of economics stems from its ability to explain how rational calculations underlie seemingly irrational behaviour. Even romantic melodrama, such as a lover fasting outside his beloved’s house, can be explained by rational choice theory. Such an act is a powerful way of signalling commitment, according to the Nobel economist Michael Spence. 

Do Valentine’s day gifts also satisfy the test of economic rationality? Neil MacArthur and Mariana Adshade use game theory to show why it is best to avoid such gifts, especially if a couple is already committed. 

“Valentine’s Day, essentially, is a game in which each person who is in a relationship must choose between two strategies; buy a gift for their significant other or do nothing to celebrate the day,” the duo writes. 

Given that there are two players, each with two strategic options, there are three possible outcomes that can happen on the day. The first outcome is that both buy gifts, and are satisfied to learn that their partner is committed to the relationship. But that satisfaction comes at a huge cost as most Valentine day gifts are over-priced. The second outcome is that one partner buys a gift and the other does not. One need not explain the consequence. Suffice to say that break-ups tend to spike up in the second half of February, according to Facebook data. The third outcome is that neither gifts. 

“The best strategy would be for couples to ignore the holiday altogether, but they won’t because there is just too much pressure to conform to the holiday traditions from both inside and outside the relationship. From a game strategic perspective, participating in the holiday just leads to sub-optimal outcomes,” the duo argues. 

It’s divorce day – let’s bust some marriage myths

The conservative narrative baffles: how can tying the knot be both a moral choice and an insurance policy?

• 
• • Zoe Williams
  • The Guardian, Monday 5 January 2015

‘There’s nothing moral about making a promise, the moral part is in keeping it.’ Illustration by Mitch Blunt

It’s “divorce day”, the first working Monday after Christmas, customarily the busiest time of the year for family lawyers. In this age of constant contact, there’s been a modest surge in people seeking advice between Christmas and New Year, but for most, Twelfth Nisi is today (a half-pun for those who have already begun their divorce). If you’re married, there is a one in five chance you’re considering a split (according to a survey by legal firm Irwin Mitchell); it sounds improbably large, but there it is. If it’s not you, it’s probably him; check his phone, that’s how all the best divorces start.

Sir Paul Coleridge, a former high court judge, runs the Marriage Foundation, a charity that encourages getting and staying married. He told the Sunday Times, as part of a marriage-promotion drive in the lead-up to D-Day, of a case he’d seen: “She was the long-term girlfriend of a very high-profile celebrity person by whom she had had no fewer than four children. It was looking as if it was going to come unstuck, and she wanted to talk to me informally about what her position was. She said, ‘We’ll no doubt need an hour or two.’ I said, ‘We’ll need a minute or two because the answer is very simple: you have no rights.’”

Many people – in the 18-34 age group, almost half – believe that “common law” marriage actually comes with rights attached; that cohabiting couples with children have the same access to each other’s incomes, in the event of a split, as married ones do. This is untrue, though the “no ring, no rights” rallying cry of the marriage lobby is a bit of an overstatement (maintenance obligations obviously exist for the non-resident parent, whether previously married or not). This can prove disastrous for the main carer, who is unlikely to be the higher earner and, labouring under an illusion of legal protection, may have made no attempt to shield their finances from the hit of parenthood.

Family lawyers are divided on the answer – some would like to see new legislation that brings the common law into the purview of the actual law. Others, like Coleridge, see this as totally illogical; marriage, being limitless in both time and liability, is about the most profound contract a person can enter into. You can’t just slide into it, via cohabitation and parenthood; you have to enter into it willingly. His view is that marriage must be taught in schools (as a good idea, that is; I believe children already broadly know that it exists), and he’s supported in this by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), among others. There is something touchingly absurd about the amount of store people set by telling children things in schools – as if, when you want to alter behaviour, you simply insert a lesson and make it so. It doesn’t even work with oral hygiene.

Conservative belief in the institution of marriage runs like this: making a commitment to one another is what moral people do, and this makes marriage the most stable of all known relationships. Since stability is good for children, marriage is good for children (this mantra is given by the CSJ, especially, as something akin to gravity in its self-evidence).

Then, finally, if it all goes Pete Tong, you have the protection of the law, without which the weaker party may well end up dependent on the state. (The Sunday Times article was illustrated rather vividly by the story of a woman who, while waiting two and a half years for her husband to pay maintenance, said: “I’m pretty sure I cost the government around £400,000.”)

Few of these suppositions make much sense. There’s nothing moral about making a promise, the moral part is in keeping it, which 42% of married people don’t. Arguably, cohabiting couples are more moral than married ones, never making the promise in the first place that, most people agree and 42% prove, is rather unrealistic. In many cases, the so-called stability conferred by marriage is indistinguishable from that bestowed by wealth, which has itself become a major determinant of people’s decision to get married. But the critical contradiction, the bit I really cannot compute, is the idea of marriage as at once a moral choice and an insurance policy. It’s one or the other, surely? The abnegation of the self in the search for true togetherness, or a bid for your spouse’s income: how can it be both?

A conservative would see no contradiction, here: to have taken out the insurance policy of marriage is to have assured one’s self-sufficiency, thus protecting the state from its otherwise 400k liability (that figure does seem improbably high, but let’s go with it). Self-sufficiency is a moral act, to a conservative. In practical terms, this is nonsense; you may have left a copper-bottomed marriage, but if you weren’t rich to begin with, it is highly unlikely that your family earnings will expand to cover two households. Forty-two per cent of single parents live in poverty, 63% have no savings, 71% of all those renting are on housing benefit; so “self-sufficiency” is a byword for affluence, which then has moral superiority conferred upon it.

This is a recurring motif in the political mood music, cropping up in discussions from marriage to poverty to growth. The view from the right is that the ultimate in respectability is to need nothing from anyone: to which the left generally answers, self-sufficiency is about systems, and in the current system, it is very hard to be self-sufficient, however hard you work. But perhaps the question should be: what’s so wrong with needing one another in the first place?

The No. 1 cause of divorce may not be what you think

by Kevin A. Thompson in  Deseret News

I’m convinced the No. 1 cause of divorce is not adultery,financial problems or irreconcilable difference. Those are most often symptoms of a deeper problem.

While these problems might be real, I believe there is a bigger issue.

The most common issue I see with couples who are struggling in marriage is a lack of intentional investment in their marriage.

While it’s a fair debate of which comes first — did someone lose interest so they lost intention, or did someone lose intention so they lost interest — either way there is a key idea:

We can influence our feelings by intentionally investing in our marriage.

As I’ve written before, our affections often grow toward our investments. Wherever we put our time, money and energy also ends up receiving our passion, interest and affection.

Think about what this means for a marriage: You will generally feel for your spouse to the extent in which you invest in your spouse.

Your feelings are often far less about them and far more about what effort you have put into your marriage.

Obviously there are exceptions. Some people have made bad choices in whom they married, or the spouse has made a bad choice in whom they have become, but most of the time, we love our spouse to the extent that we invest in our spouse. (See "Marry a Partner, Not a Child.")

Consider what this means: If your feelings of love are waning, they can be recovered. With some effort, intention and energy, love can grow.

Every week I interact with marriages that are suffering. I am often like a triage nurse who observes the couple, makes an initial determination of the seriousness of their illness and then gets them with the right specialist so the expert can assist them with the issue. As the couple leaves our initial interaction, I almost always give them the same assignment: On the way home, retell the stories of your first date, how you fell in love, what first attracted you to the other, what you love the most about each other and what your dreams are of a future together. (See "Change Your Marriage Today.")

This assignment serves the purpose of unearthing long-buried feelings and memories. Just by recounting the stories, a couple is more likely to feel love for their spouse.

With a little intention, our emotions can drastically change.

Here are five things we can do every day that will reconnect us with our spouse:

1. Pray about the specifics of your spouse’s day.Not only will this remind you of the work of God in your life, but it will also require you to know the specifics of your spouse’s day and will make you wonder how their day turned out.

2. Always kiss goodbye and hello. This is a physical and emotional connection which serves as a reminder of the union between a husband and wife. Make it such a habit that even if you kiss, leave and return, you kiss again.

3. Call, text or email at least once a day to check in. You can update one another on how the day is going. You can discuss any needs for the evening and make sure everyone is on the same page regarding the schedule for the night.

4. Have at least five minutes of uninterrupted conversation. Whether it be first thing in the morning or the last thing at night, relationships demand conversation. Turn off the television, put down the phone and talk. This might be more difficult with young children, but find a way to make it happen. Remember, if you were having an affair, you find the time to engage in that affair no matter how busy you are, so make the time for your spouse.

5. Hug for at least 30 seconds. Before you leave for work or after you come home or as you go to bed, have an extended physical embrace which reminds your body, soul and mind of your deep connection with this other person. Studies have shown that hugging reduces blood pressure, but it also connects you with the person you hug. Physical touch must be more than just intimacy. By truly embracing every day, each partner will feel more valued and loved.

If your marriage requires anything, it requires intention. To the extent that both spouses are intentional about keeping the marriage healthy, the marriage will thrive. Apathy will slowly erode a marriage, but intention will cause it to continually grow.

The secrets of long-term love

What is the key to a happy marriage? Is there a formula for long-term love? And how do you keep the passion alive after more than 50 years together? Six happily married couples share their secrets, from never eating in front of the television to keeping some things a mystery

• Hannah Shuckburgh
• The Guardian, Friday 22 August 2014 13.00 BST

Together for 56 years

Gem, 74, and Ezra Harris, 74, grew up in Glengoffe, a village in St Catherine, Jamaica. Ezra emigrated to England at 19, Gem followed him two months later, and they married in August 1958. They settled in Bradford. Ezra was a forklift driver and Gem worked in domestic service until they both retired. They have three children, Jennifer, 55, Christopher, 52 and Samantha, 45, and four grandchildren.

 Ezra and Gem Harris: ‘ We have a good time. We used to love a dance, listen to reggae, calypso. But it’s hard now with our bad knees.’ Photograph: Bohdan Cap for the Guardian

Ezra: Back home, people used to talk about abroad as if the whole place was paved with gold. When a plane passed overhead we would all look up and wish we were on it. One day I heard an advertisement on the radio, saying you could come to Britain and get work. It was a promise of a future. I wanted to make myself better off and be somebody.

I arrived in Bradford in June. It was supposed to be summer but I can remember the cold, the smell of the coal. The first day I was here, I felt like going back. You feel lonely; you miss your parents. I thought it would be much easier if I got a wife.

Gem had been two years below me in church school. I didn't know anything about women. My father was a preacher and very strict. I wrote to her saying I'd like to send for her to come and marry me. I hoped she'd agree and she did – she was glad to come because I bought her a ticket out of Jamaica. I knew she would make a good wife.

We didn't go back to Jamaica until 1973. Everything seemed different – smaller, farther away. It didn't feel like home. But still, after all this time, I can't get shot of my accent. Gem always tells me, "Speak English!" But you cannot teach an old dog new tricks.

Fifty-six years we have been married. You must work at it. Talk to each other. Disagree, but don't let arguments drag on. Don't go around having lots of kids with women and not looking after them. And believe in God. If you trust in Him, everything is going to be all right.

I try to be a good husband. I try not to come in with mucky hands. She worries about me passing first, and I tell her, "Don't worry about a thing." But if she goes first I will be miserable.

We're going to go on a cruise, and when I booked it the lady asked if we would like separate beds. I said, "What are you talking about, woman?" We are husband and wife. Sometimes you still get some fun!

Gem: I remember looking down from the plane as I flew into England for the first time, and seeing all this smoke coming from the chimneys. It looked as if the whole place was on fire.

Even now, I don't know how I managed to get to Bradford alone. Ezra didn't come to meet me at the station – I am still angry with him about that – so I got a taxi to his lodgings. It was just a room, really, with a coal fire and a paraffin heater.

I'd brought a wedding dress from home, and my mother's veil. I arrived on 12 August, and we married on 30 August in a register office. I missed my family very much at first, but you get used to it. The winters were hardest.

There was a lot of racism back then. People would shout, "Go back to your dirty country!" They treated you as though you were nothing. It was hurtful, but you just try to keep away from trouble.

Ezra calls me "the wife", which he shouldn't do. I'll tidy up the house and he'll go and leave crumbs. We quarrel every day, but we always make up.

He likes to cuddle, but I don't bother. I am always telling him to talk properly, but when I get mad, I talk in patois: "Shuttup and come dung ere, man!" He just laughs.

We have a good time. We used to love a drink and a dance at the African-Caribbean centre, listen to some reggae, some calypso – but it is upstairs and it's hard to get up there now with our bad knees. On Sundays I'll always cook Jamaican food for the family – curried goat, rice and peas, but always with yorkshire pudding, too.

Together for 52 years

 Mick and Barbara Wilson: ‘ I know many couples can’t survive such loss, but we could always talk and cry together.’ Photograph: Bohdan Cap for the Guardian

Barbara, 72, and Mick Wilson, 79, met in 1960 and married in 1962. Their eldest daughter, Sarah, died in a white-water rafting accident 14 years ago in Peru, when she was 36. Barbara is a neuropsychologist; Mick is a retired English teacher, and they live in Bury St Edmunds. They have two surviving children, Anna and Matthew, and four grandchildren.

Barbara: I was in my first year at teacher-training college when Mick, in the year above, invited me to his room for coffee. "Mick Wilson never invites people for coffee," a friend told me. He gave me a large German beer mug full of Nescafé; I think he wanted to make a good impression.

Mick thought we should wait to have children, but I decided we shouldn't. We were hippies: no TV, no car, we made our own bread. Mick had long hair and a beard and wore bell-bottoms. We had lots of cats and stick insects. I was a housewife, but Mick wanted me educated. I took my psychology A-level when I was 29, then a degree, a master's, and a PhD.

In 2000, I was leaving work when a colleague said, "Mick's on his way over." I just knew something awful had happened. Maybe it's the cat, I thought. Please let it be the cat. Mick called from the motorway. "There's terrible news." Some part of me already knew. "Is it Sarah? Is she dead?" He said, "I think so."

We somehow got through that night. Some kind of madness takes over. It's anguish, grief and everything in between. We took turns to be strong, I think. We talked and cried and held each other. We arranged to go out to Peru the following week and Mick paid £10,000 for a helicopter to look for Sarah's body. It was pointless, of course, but I knew he needed to do it, so I let him. Sarah has never been a taboo: we talk about her every day.

Mick: It was always a strong marriage. We've done daft things, of course. Back in the old, hippy days we thought we wanted an open marriage, but we tried it once or twice and it didn't work out for us. It taught us both that the best kind of arousal comes through affection, not sex with just anyone.

Our daughter Sarah's marriage had broken down after years of failed fertility treatments and she went to Peru to rethink her life. To this day, we've never had a body to bury. We won't ever have closure. You can learn to live with it, but you'll never close the book. I know many couples find their relationship can't survive this kind of loss, but ours did because we could always talk to each other and cry together.

We are in our old age now and, the way we see it, we've lived a happy life, apart from one terrible tragedy. We have two wonderful children, and four grandchildren. To have the marriage we have, the life we have together, I think we've been very privileged.

Together for 36 years

 Howard Shepherdson (left) and Rod Marten: ‘ We have no separate lives. We spend every day together and it never gets boring.’ Photograph: Bohdan Cap for the Guardian

Rod Marten, 71, and Howard Shepherdson, 60, met in a pub in London in 1978. Rod is a retired tax inspector; Howard is a semi-retired management consultant. They were the UK's first same-sex couple to be legal long-term foster parents; their son, Glen, is 43. Rod and Howard have two grandchildren, and have been civil partners since 2005. They live in Ealing, west London.

Howard: I had always thought the idea of love at first sight was a cliche. But one Thursday night in 1978, that's what happened. I spotted Rod at the bar and it was just lovely from the moment we started chatting. I went home to my parents in Sussex that weekend feeling quite delirious. I thought, "What is this?" It was like catching pneumonia.

In 1985 I was a school counsellor and had been working with a 14-year-old boy, Glen, from a children's home. One day, Glen just asked me: "Will you be my dad?" I thought it was best to be honest with him, so I said I was afraid it was impossible, because I'm gay. Glen said, "Why should that matter?" And it struck a chord. Rod and I decided we might as well try. No gay couple had formally adopted – or long-term fostered, as we did – before. It was very strengthening, loving someone together and them loving you back. He now lives in France with his wife, Isabelle. We visit all the time, and Skype. Having grandchildren has been a deeply enriching experience for us.

Rod and I are not at all independent of each other. We have no separate lives. We spend every day together and it never gets boring. Yes, sex does start to slow down at our age, but physical intimacy shouldn't. We still curl up on the sofa together, as we have done for ever. There's just one thing we avoid completely as it would mean instant divorce – DIY.

Rod: When I went into work the day after I'd met Howard, a colleague said I seemed different, extra-happy. I was. We met in September and by December we were looking to buy a flat together. I think my family thought it was a bit soon, but we're still in the same flat, 36 years later.

In the 80s, being openly gay on the street was not something you felt particularly secure doing. We've never walked around holding hands. If we were 21 now we'd do it, but you can't just start doing that in your 60s. Getting our civil partnership was a political statement, but as the date got closer, it felt very romantic.

I think relationships need rules. Work must never dominate your life. We never go to sleep on an argument. I am a terrible procrastinator, and Howard is an over-organiser, but you have to learn to love the other person for who they are, and not be frustrated by what you want them to be. It's no good being perpetually disappointed. Our other absolute rule is that we never, ever eat dinner in front of the television. We haven't done it once in 36 years.

Together for 40 years

 Setsuo Kato and Jill Fanshawe Kato: ' We’ve both had admirers over the years, but we have got strong self-discipline.’ Photograph: Bohdan Cap for the Guardian

Jill Fanshawe Kato, 68, and Setsuo Kato, 72, met in London in the early 70s and married in Tokyo in 1974. They spent two years living in Japan before moving back to the UK and settling in north London. Setsuo is a freelance photojournalist; Jill is a potter.

Jill: I had visited Japan in my 20s and found it a very chauvinistic place. But I'd got quite far with my Japanese and wanted to carry on learning, so I joined an evening class in Holborn. Setsuo turned up one night to interview students for an article that he was writing.

Luckily for us, our families were very supportive. We had a traditional Japanese wedding in Tokyo. I wore a pink kimono with kanzashi hair ornaments.

I think after all these years together, I have started looking a bit Japanese. I've always used kohl round my eyes, and I like to wear Japanese textiles. I suppose it's attitude and behaviour, too. I'm from Devon, but British people can never tell where I'm from.

We never had children – perhaps that is the thing that has kept us together, and given us greater independence. We've both had admirers over the years, but we have got strong self-discipline. You need to be kind to each other, remember the value of what you have.

There should always be an unknown area of your partner. There is a lot of mystery about Setsuo. We would never go to the loo in front of each other; there is privacy and respect between us. We've lived in this house for more than 30 years, but Setsuo has never once gone into my studio at the top of the house. We are probably still finding things out about each other, even now.

Setsuo: Japanese men who travelled to London in those days were not mainstream – we were adventurous types. It wasn't as if you just hopped on a plane. I'd caught a Russian boat from Yokohama, and took the Siberian railway all the way to London.

I have lived here a long time, but I always consider myself Japanese. I am not very good at being physically affectionate. I am a bit better at it than most Japanese men, but I don't talk about my feelings. I don't lose my temper.

Jill and I give each other huge freedom. Jill will often go abroad for a month or two to work, and I enjoy a social life more than her – I zoom off and come back as I wish. We've always said we face the world back to back.

I think you have to be patient. When life is down, people think changing partners will help – but I'm not convinced anyone is better off in the long run. It would just be awful to have to start again.

We are like two trees that have grown together; our roots are entwined.

Together for 59 years

 Patrick and Doreen Skilling: ‘ We married at the Savoy, way above our station.' Photograph: Bohdan Cap for the Guardian

Doreen, 89, and Patrick Skilling, 86, married in 1955. They lived in Notting Hill for 50 years; Patrick was an advertising executive and Doreen designed wallpaper for Biba. In the 70s, the couple gave up their jobs to run a furniture stall together in Portobello Market. Doreen was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2006 and they now live together at the Sunrise care home in Beaconsfield.

Patrick: A colleague had been trying to take Doreen out. He said to me, "Take this bird out, will you? I can't handle her." So I took her for a drink. I was wildly impressed. We dated for five years and were married in the Queen's Chapel at the Savoy. It was way above our station, but Doreen somehow managed it.

We always thought we would have children, but by the time we realised it probably wasn't going to happen, it was too late. We weren't sad about it at the time – it wasn't something we even talked about – but now I think it may have been the greatest tragedy of our lives. When I see Doreen cuddling a doll now, I wonder whether it may have affected her more than she let on, that there might be a deeper sense of loss.

I was earning good money in advertising, smoking and drinking too much. I'm sorry to say I failed her many times; falling into the pitfalls that husbands do. But Doreen was always very patient. We decided I'd leave my job and we'd become business partners. So we took a stall in Portobello Market, and started selling antiques and junk furniture. It revitalised our married life. We had time to talk.

Ten years ago, I started to notice Doreen was having problems with numbers. She couldn't sort out the change. It was two years before we got a diagnosis, that she had Alzheimer's. She has never really understood what is happening to her. The change in her was slow and almost imperceptible. But I wept for her. It was so dreadful that such a lovely person should face such a thing.

All along I'd assumed we'd stay at home. But after six years, she developed problems I just couldn't cope with. She moved into a home, and for two months I visited her every day. It was obvious from day one that I should live there, too. I wanted to continue being important in her life. Selling our house was like losing another partner. You mourn for these things, as if they were human; the conservatory full of plants we'd tended together, all her paintings.

Doreen lives on a secure wing, and I have a separate room. She doesn't communicate at all now. She sits around looking lovely. I envy her tranquillity. I go up every day. She doesn't know it's me – Pat, her husband – but I think she thinks I'm a friendly face. That's good enough for me. I just cherish what's left.

Now I must fill my days. I walk, garden, do my stamp albums. I don't want to sit slumped on a chair, like everyone else here. And Doreen, she'll just fade away. She won't be afraid of it. But I'll be shattered. Inertia will probably keep me here after she's gone. I am 86, and it's just too daunting to find a new house. But you live day by day. It's hard to live any other way.

Together for 73 years

 Fred and Gladys Croft: ‘ It will come some day, life without each other. We don’t like to think about it’ Photograph: Bohdan Cap for the Guardian

Gladys, 100, and Fred Croft, 96, met at a dance in New Malden, south-west London, in 1931. Gladys was a factory worker; Fred an engineer who then joined the air force. They married in 1940, before Fred was posted abroad. After the war, Fred worked for the NHS, and the couple settled in the London suburbs. They have a daughter, Audrey, 69, and a grandson, Iain, 41. They live in couples' accommodation in the Acacia Mews care home in St Albans.

Gladys: My mother died of an asthma attack when I was 18, and my father remarried and went off with his new family. He paid our rent, but we never saw him again. My youngest sister was only eight, so we had to bring ourselves up – five sisters in a small flat in Raynes Park.

I would go out with the girls I worked with at the weekend. We'd always have a good laugh. That's where I saw Fred for the first time, at a dance. I loved dancing back then.

We got married just before he left for the war and I wore a wedding dress that three of my sisters had already worn. We didn't have many guests, just my sisters and Fred's mum, who had made a fruitcake.

I didn't want children during the war, because so many fathers didn't come back, you see. You can't think the worst, but my sister's husband was killed in the war – terribly sad.

Audrey was born in May 1946. It was too late to have any more children, because I was so old – 32. We decided that we wouldn't have any more.

We've had some wonderful holidays. Fred would often surprise me by booking a hotel for the weekend. We both love seeing places – Denmark, Spain, Ireland – but we'd never take a package tour. We liked to do it ourselves, see a lot of things.

We don't get flustered; I think that's the secret. Fred is very easy-going. He'll go into the garden and I'll leave him be. He has been a good husband, and I think I've been a good wife.

We haven't had difficult times or problems like many other people have – we've had good health, nice holidays, and we've worked hard. We've done everything together, and always had each other. We've never been lonely. I have never been unhappy in all my life. You have to make your own pleasures, don't you?

Fred: There's nothing magical about it, really. We've just lived a normal life. If you've got problems, you sort them out. We have arguments, but we've never had a row. Not a proper one.

Yes, there are things we would have liked to have, but if we couldn't afford it, we didn't buy it. We never bought a house. Borrowing money makes for trouble. I've met two people in my life with plenty of money and they've never been happy. Money causes terrible worries for people.

The things you saw in the war, they shaped you. These days, youngsters don't seem satisfied with life. They think nothing of getting married three times. Our grandson, Iain, is divorced. I think you've got to try to be happy with what you have. Don't always be looking elsewhere. Don't aim for the moon.

I've always let Gladys do what she pleased. If she wanted to go out with the girls, she just went. I didn't worry. But I've always included her in my interests, that's the thing. I love boats, and we had wonderful barge holidays together for 30 years.

It'll come some day, life without each other. We don't like to think about it. Gladys gets panic attacks. I can't stand up on my own any more, so I can't help her. It's terrible to watch. I wouldn't want to be without her.

10 funniest jokes from the Edinburgh festival fringe 2014

Courtesy The Guardian

1. "I've decided to sell my Hoover… well, it was just collecting dust." – Tim Vine

2. "I've written a joke about a fat badger, but I couldn't fit it into my set." – Masai Graham

3. "Always leave them wanting more, my uncle used to say to me. Which is why he lost his job in disaster relief." – Mark Watson

4. "I was given some sudoku toilet paper. It didn't work. You could only fill it in with number 1s and number 2s." – Bec Hill

5. "I wanted to do a show about feminism. But my husband wouldn't let me." – Ria Lina

6. "Money can't buy you happiness? Well, check this out, I bought myself a Happy Meal." – Paul F Taylor

7. "Scotland had oil, but it's running out thanks to all that deep frying." – Scott Capurro

8. "I forgot my inflatable Michael Gove, which is a shame 'cause halfway through he disappears up his own arsehole." – Kevin Day

9. "I've been married for 10 years, I haven't made a decision for seven." – Jason Cook

10. "This show is about perception and perspective. But it depends how you look at it." –Felicity Ward