When your husband drives you crazy

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34045, 8 January 1976, Page 5

When your husband drives you crazy

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STELLA BRUCE)

LONDON. What is xour husband's most annoying habit? 1 know it will be hard to select just one from the wide range available, but 1 rx .

Perhaps it is his trick of, dismantling the car the mo-i ment lunch is served, or perhaps his habit of coming back from the golf club v taring someone else’s > >cks Or what about that hideous trick of turning over in bed on a cold night and winding all the blankets around himself and off vou? Whatever it si, do' vou sometimes wish there was a law against it? If so, then perhap- you ought to make < ne. Thousands of wives do If they are really smart they do it before they get married, but often, as we know, a man’s annoying habits do not emerge until he feels thoroughly at home and has known you long enough not to bother to shave on Sundays. When Jackie Kennedy married the late Aristotle Onassis. the couple drew up a 170-point contract covering every aspect of their life together, from where they would spend their holidays to what Jackie was expected to wear at cocktail parties. Not many of us are in this league. I know, hut husbands’ habits break all class barriers. That is why a car worker in Chicago recently spent most of a week’s wages having a contract drawn up which included such clauses as “My wife will refrain from setting the alarm clock; on Sunday moriings” and “She will agree not to com-| plain about my habit of! drinking tea out of the saucer.” As it happens, his wife did agree, on the understanding that “my husband will not criticise my dress’ sense, nor comment about! my skin blemishes.” Of course, there is nothing; new about marriage con-1 tracts. The well-to-do have'

long used them to protect,! :their wealth. jr The difference is that| today most contracts are i 'ess about money and more concerned with ways of ' stopping those annoying t traits and habits which can r do a partnership such harm. A sociologist. Francis < Gaunt, who has made some- < thing of a study of contracts < — he has compiled a list of t more than 1000 — told me < that a large proportion of contracts are drawn up after i some years of marriage. I often as a last effott to save 1 • it. 1 He says: "Often the con- J tracts are what I call the- 1 ■ rapeutic, written with the < ; help of a lawyer or even a i marriage counsellor with the 1 object of bringing annoying ‘ behaviour out in the open 1 and thus having a chance to talk about it. ‘ “Often the contract doesn’t •’ even get to the stage of be- ■ coming a legal document. The very fact that the part- . ners can discuss what’s both- ( I ering them is enough to heal . the breach. 1 “But of course this doesn’t - please a lawyer, who finds ; that his case has disappeared before his eyes.” ; Women I have spoken to ; about this latest trend could , not wait to tell me of the . 1 things against which they . i would legislate. | Said one long-married j woman with three children: • "I’d do anything short of ] |murder to stop him wiping , each piece of cutlery with his ( table napkin before a meal. . as though it was crawling ( with germs.” “If I had a contract with r my husband it would include x la clause stipulating that in-it stead of saying every night:lf (“I’ll just go for a quick stroll; I around the block before it turning in.’ he would tell the x truth and say he was going !

to the pub.” declared a wife married 17 years. "You wouldn't believe how it irritates me.” I would indeed. But those who advocate marriage con-; tracts have something a little! more serious in mind. Says Francis Gaunt: “Many contracts stipulate privacy and freedom, nights out away from the other partner, and sometimes even permit extra-marital affairs. “In other cases, a contract might stipulate separate bank accounts, the number of children to be born into the marriage, and what will happen to the assets of the marriage in the event of a divorce. “Sometimes the contract might be for a specific time, say five years. Then it comes up for renewal. If both partners don’t agree on another term, they go their separate ways.” PRIVATE CONTRACT If you think that a marriage contract seems the ideal way to deal with your spouse’s irritating ways, may 1 offer just one word of warning: not all nations yet accept their legality. “It all depends on whether a judge feels justified in intervening in a marriage to enforce a private contract,” says a London barrister specialising in matrimonial law. “If you really want your agreement to be absolutely legally watertight, then there’s only one thing to do: don't get married! Then the contract is not limited by any established marriage law.” But if we were not married. we undoubtedly would not have put up with our spouse’s irritating habits; for so long. Come to think of it, he might not have to put up with ours either! —Features’ International.