magazines

Relationships: Six ways to help keep things interesting

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Bunting

I’ve read dozens of women’s magazines about ways to make a relationship more exciting.

And they all suggest similar things – weekends away, writing each other love letters, getting dressed up and pretending to be completely different people for an evening…

And that’s all well and good but what if you don’t have the time, money and interest in fancy dress required to make them happen? What if your idea of role play is having him fill the dishwasher while you play on the X-Box for once?

The problem with these suggestions is that they don’t cater for those of us wishing to spice up the mundane. What a relationship needs is small scale, every day gestures to keep things fresh.

So, seeing as lady mags refuse to do it for us, I have stepped up and written some suggestions of my own. Follow these steps and see daily life move from monotony to out-of-this-world excitement before your very eyes. You’re welcome, ladies.

1. Serve snacks in your very best vessels

So what if all you’ve got to offer for pudding is a packet of Cadbury’s Chocolate Buttons? It doesn’t matter that it’s not a homemade trifle or a hand-crafted tart, all you need is to bring out one of your best bowls (you know, the ones that don’t have any cracks in at all) and all of a sudden pudding has become dessert. You’ll be so blown away by the effect it has on the atmosphere in your house, you’ll be looking for a waiter to ask for the bill.

2. Schedule at least one night a week when you won’t fall asleep in front of the telly

Now, this will take some planning but it’s well worth the effort. Think how amazing it’ll be to have just one evening where you don’t wake up dazed and confused on the sofa at midnight to the sound of your other half shouting from the bedroom “I won’t call you again – please just come to bed!” Think how amazed he’ll be to see you conscious for an entire night – you might even get to see a whole television programme together! All you’ll need to make this happen is an early night every night for the week leading up to the event, a bowl of water on hand for face-splashing purposes, and something extraordinarily compelling to watch on TV. I recommend Don’t Tell The Bride.

3. Make outlandish culinary suggestions

The secret to a happy relationship is to integrate the element of surprise into everyday life. For example, when my husband got home the other day, I suggested that we ate a sauce I’d originally made to go with cod, with steak. I KNOW. And then, when he was already dazzled, I floated the idea that perhaps we could explore other sauces to liven up our dinners. If that doesn’t keep him coming back for more, I don’t know what will.

4. Incorporate jokes into everyday life

“Would you like a little bit of chocolate?” he says.

“No, I’d like LOADS!” I say.

“Are you in the bedroom?” I say.

“No,” he says, clearly sitting in the lounge.

“Oh I just assumed you were, seeing as THE LIGHT IS STILL ON IN THERE.”

NB: Sarcasm can be considered relationship kryptonite when used incorrectly so think carefully before deploying it. Always ensure the person you’re dealing with realises you’re trying to be funny and that you’re not just being mean.

5. Suggest very small-scale home improvements

Some people might think redecorating a room or building a conservatory is the perfect way to liven up a relationship. Those people do not live here. But that doesn’t mean we don’t want to make our home better, we just want to do it at a rate we can handle – i.e. very, very slowly. Today, for example, I suggested we put the garden bunting we received as a wedding gift up on the fence. We did it together, it took us ten minutes (after which we both had to have a sit down) and we can now bask in our domestic success until the autumn – winner!

6. Make him find loyalty points as exciting as you do 

A woman with an eye for a bargain is worth more to a relationship than 20 mini-breaks, and that’s a fact. Sure it’s not something for the early dating days – nobody wants to have a chat about your most recent Advantage Card points coup on a first date, but once you’re living together, a money-saving win classes as high quality banter. And what could bring more joy to a relationship than knowing you’ve made that saving together – that your combined efforts are the reasons you’re going to the cinema for free, or purchasing baked beans at half the usual retail price? Splashing your cash only gets you so far, it’s 241 coupons that are at the heart of a truly happy marriage.

Well, if those tips don’t add a touch of spice to your relationship then I don’t know what will. And sure, you can still partake in the odd weekend away or love letter writing marathon should you wish, but it’s these bad boys that will keep you going through the mundanity of modern life.

And of course, you can always try a touch of role play should it take your fancy. My current favourite costume involves my pyjamas, dressing gown, slippers and pretending to be a woman so exhausted she just falls asleep as soon as you turn on the television. I’m not sure it’s quite what Cosmopolitan had in mind.

Women’s magazines: Which ones are aimed at me?

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Magazines

My relationship with magazines started with Shout. Remember Shout? Ah, it was great.

I would attach every set of stickers that came with it to my bedroom door (much to my mum’s horror) and stare at PJ and Duncan, Paul Nicholls and Boyzone each night as I drifted off to sleep. Then came the wonderful Smash Hits and a weekly instalment of lyrics for me to use to sing along to the Spice Girls and Peter Andre like the totally cool dude that I was back then.

Then I moved on to Sugar and Bliss and learnt that – hey guess what – other girls get bad skin/knotty hair/inexplicably angry once a month, and that we were all agreed that farting – or ‘parping’ as they called it – in front of another human being was definitely the single worst thing that could possibly happen to anybody EVER.

But then I became a grown up. And with more and more mags to choose from these days, it’s hard to know exactly which ones are aimed at me. What publication should a 28-year-old married woman who thinks the fact that she still wears Converse trainers means she’s right on trend and that Coronation Street is cutting edge television be reading, I wonder?

So, in the interests of research, yesterday I ventured out and bought five magazines to help me find the answer: Grazia, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Red and Glamour.

There’s something so wonderfully indulgent about buying lots of glossies at once, like all I’m going to do for the rest of the day is sip hot chocolate and glide through the pages in front of a roaring fire. Sadly I don’t have a fire, only radiators, and if I am drinking hot chocolate, I tend to neck it whilst throwing a large marshmallow down with every gulp, so my consumption of these reading materials was less glamorous than you might think but I still had a very nice time.

And whilst I was reading them I noticed five things:

1. Grown-up magazines don’t come with packs of free stickers (more’s the pity).
2. I now enjoy looking at clothes in magazines more than I do in shops. I can sit down whilst I’m doing it, eat a chocolate bar at the same time, and fool myself into thinking that I still have a size 8 waist (though the size of the chocolate bar I eat tends to make that illusion rather short lived);
3. People are still talking about twerking (and I’m definitely still too old to try it);
4. Magazines will never run out of things to write about sex;
5. Reading this many glossies at once could prove to be a very expensive habit.

And I loved it. I stared at shoes I can’t afford, I read an article about the importance of empathy that I enjoyed, I noted that ankle boots and boyfriend jeans are now considered to be a perfect match and quietly disagreed, and I read a review of The Wolf of Wall Street that made me want to see it even more than I already did. I might do this every Saturday.

And I realised that there is thankfully still plenty out there for me. OK the fashion has changed a little bit (although I notice crop-tops still haven’t disappeared back to the nineties where they belong), the celebrities I read about are new (what ever happened to Shampoo?) and Sugar never suggested I consider quitting my job and setting up my own business (school was kind of a non-negotiable commitment). But my reasons for enjoying them are still the same – for a little light relief, a quick fix of celebrity, and to maybe even learn a thing or two. It’s just a shame they don’t include song lyrics any more so I guess I’ll have to google them like everybody else.

As to which magazines are aimed at me, I guess the good news is that the answer is all of them; there was something in every single one that I enjoyed. Granted there were also a few bits that were of less interest – with a chocolate habit like mine, features about diets and exercise regimes are never going to be my thing – but a quick turn of the page and I was back onto something more up my street.

My only disappointment was that none of them included any pictures of Boyzone for me to put up so I suppose I’ll just have to find my own. My bedroom door’s looking awfully bare.