Till Death Us Do Part

Whilst browsing through the paper this morning I nearly choked on my breakfast (croissants and smoked cheese in case you are interested – as I am currently enjoying a ‘majorly delicious’  full fat phase- eat your detoxed heart out Gwynnie! ) when I came across an article informing me that a Swiss study has shown that marriage shortens a woman’s life by as much as one year.

Good grief – so when my boyfriend proposed to me earlier this year he was actually issuing me with a death threat.

It doesn’t help that on our first date he nearly brained me.

We had gone for a very nice drink (or ten) and were taking a shortcut home through a cemetry, where he told me he wanted to show me a very interesting grave (cut the Sid James cackling, please, there was no ‘tombstone’ in his pocket). As I bent down to examine the faded inscription on the grave, he leant casually against a tree, adopting a fully relaxed, Littlewoods catalogue man pose. As his arm made contact with the tree I heard a sharp crack and looked up to see a massive branch heading my way. It missed my head by a millimetre, landing squarely on my shoulder. I was flung forwards under the weight – he lurched forwards (to ‘try and save me’ apparently), and ended up giving me a Huyton kiss (that’s a head butt to anyone south of Liverpool).

So, on my first date I ended up with mild concussion and a dislocated shoulder and now he wants to finish me off with marriage in the first degree.

I continued reading the article.

Apparently married women are way more likely to suffer from diseases and go to hospital with mental health problems than their single counterparts.

Conversely, married men have a whole host of health benefits, including lower risk of heart disease and fewer cases of depression. They also live around ten years longer than unmarried men.

I read on.

Apparently women who experience divorce are 60% more likely to develop heart disease than their long-term married friends.

I put the remains of my full fat croissant and smoked cheese to one side.

I have already been married (knock one year off life). I then got divorced (add 60% increased risk of heart disease). Someone has asked me to get married again (knock another year off life).

I am doomed!

But why? Why should marriage be such a death sentence / invitation to the funny farm for women? Surely all the picking the pants off the floor / wrestling for the remote / map reading / having to know the exact location of everything in the house all the bloody time must only enhance our mental and physical well-being – mustn’t it?