If I had the time I would carry out sociological research on relationships and what people’s expectations are when they go into them.

More specifically, I would ask couples about to tie the knot why, exactly, they are getting married. Then five years down the line, I would ask the same couples whether they regret their decision and whether married life had lived up to their expectations.

It seems to me that no one really knows what he or she wants. Those who are single spend their weekends looking for someone who wants a commitment; those who are married soon start feeling restless and trapped and do everything they can to get out of the marriage. People without children yearn desperately for them; then once they have them, they wonder what on earth they were thinking and try to wheedle relatives into babysitting so they can be “free”.

Are you sure you know what you’re doing?

I’m not being jaded or cynical about relationships, just realistic. In fact, when it’s done in the right circumstances between two people who are right for each other, I happen to think that the institution of marriage is a wonderful thing – I just think too many people enter into it blindly. They either choose completely the wrong person to begin with (and then wonder a few years later why he/she refuses to “change”) or else they marry for the wrong reasons:

“All my friends are getting married”

“I want a baby”

“I don’t want to end up alone”

“The house and wedding preparations are all ready so might as well go through with it”, “he has a lot of money”

“I’ve had my wedding dress picked out since I was 12”.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time”

People whose marriages haven’t worked out often look back at their former unmarried selves and scoff at their own naiveté. Women, in particular, sometimes cannot even remember why they were so anxious to get married in the first place. Men, on the other hand, often wonder how they got talked into it.

As editor of the weddings magazine I DO (I know, the irony is not lost on me either), I must have spoken to over 100 couples about their Big Day. The more the bride wants everything to be perfect and “just so”, the more her eyes glaze over in ecstasy as she describes the way the flowers matched the exact shade of the bridesmaids’ dresses, the more I think “oh, oh. Here is another one who is going to come down to earth with a resounding thump.”

Because, tell me, what can ever match the utter perfection of this one glorious day? Nothing really. Certainly not the reality of married life with its routine and tediousness and mundane chores, which have to be done every single day, with both the husband and wife tired and grumpy after a day at work and coming home only to have to start cooking dinner, and washing the dishes and washing the clothes, and whose turn is it to hang up the washing, and then you forgot to take the washing down, and what, you expect me to do everything, what about you, and then there’s the ironing and putting clothes away, and you didn’t buy milk again and it’s all your fault and...

And that’s before the babies come.

Of course, living with someone can also be fantastic and wonderful, especially when you’re very much in tune with one another. But come on, admit it, the drudgery of just getting everything done does tend to dull the glow of even the most blissful of relationships. The Zoo comedy team have a wickedly accurate female character, a frumpy, worn-out housewife portrayed brilliantly by Claire Agius Ordway. She has this trademark phrase that sums it all up: “zaqqi mas-sink u sidri mal-cooker” (rough translation: “my stomach at the sink and my chest to the cooker”).

I’m not saying marriage has to be like that for women, but all too often (sorry to burst your bubble) yes, it does come down to that. I know many men say they will “help out”, but these are a rare breed, and the ones who actually follow through are even rarer.

Which is why choosing the person who is right for you is crucial. Because it’s bad enough having to do mindless chores when you are madly in love with your husband – but can you imagine how much worse it would be to find yourself scrubbing pots and pans and there, snoring away in front of the television set is a man you find yourself slowly starting to detest?

And lest the men get offended, I’ll paint the opposite scenario – imagine coming home to a spoiled brat of a wife who is never happy, always demanding more, always whining, always complaining. If that doesn’t make a man wish that he’d stayed single, I don’t know what will.

Going through changes

I’m often told that the problem is because people change when they get married. Yes, of course they do, we all change. Sometimes the man changes and develops his personality because of his career, and the wife, stuck at home, is stunted in her growth, too immersed in childcare and curtains to keep herself interesting. Sometimes it’s the woman who blossoms and wants to explore new opportunities, while the man digs his heels in and refuses to budge from his armchair and the sports channel.

But if we really had to be honest with ourselves, most of the characteristics which bother us in our other half have been there all along – we just see them more clearly now and don’t think they’re so cute any more.

Here I’m not talking about downright destructive behaviour, but just those niggling, irritating quirks which bother us in the other person simply because we have been with them so long. It’s like that black comedy War of the Roses, when Kathleen Turner’s character feels like throttling her husband (played by Michael Douglas) because of his insistence that he chews his food so thoroughly before he swallows it. Any long-married couple will recognise the exasperation, the jaw clenching and the barely concealed fury.

As the camera cuts between her murderous eyes staring at him across the long table and his mouth, chewing, chewing, chewing, you just know she’s going to lunge at him. And she does.

So maybe the trick in choosing your mate for life is to think of the absolutely most annoying traits in your partner and try and picture having to live with them for the rest of your life. Then try and think of all the redeeming, positive qualities, in order to weigh whether they will compensate for the things that irk you. I’m not guaranteeing you will make the right choice, but at least you will hopefully go into it with your eyes open.

Of course, if you’re hopelessly in love, all this advice goes straight out the window because you are clearly, incapable of clear judgement. In this case, it will have to be love that will carry you through all the bumps along the road – and that’s not such a bad thing, after all.

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