Liz Fraser, best-selling author of The Yummy Mummy’s Survival Guide, sums up the practice of moulding a newly-wed husband best when she describes it as “stealth training”. She points out that “nothing makes a man dig his heels in more than being asked to do something.” My sister-in-law agreed: “Nagging doesn’t work, begging doesn’t work, tears don’t work. You have to have positive strategies.”
Every female of my acquaintance volunteered her own tried-and-tested covert method of promoting domestic harmony. So here they are – 25 ways for a woman to keep her husband in her thrall. It’s a Good Housekeeping guide for the 21st century, with the Duchess of Cambridge the cover star.
Lay on the flattery
As a modern housewife, there will be the occasional task that you never want to dirty your hands with: generally speaking, anything electrical, technical or involving contact with large spiders, chainsaws or burglars. This is when you employ flattery. Trot out variants on “You’re so good at this”, “What wonderful man-skills you have!” and “It’s lovely to have you doing this, it really makes me feel protected!”, and so on, til the danger of you actually assisting has passed.
Encourage him in the kitchen
We’ve all seen MasterChef, so the secret’s out: men are often better with the Magimix than we are. It’s therefore a waste of his embryonic talent if you cook every night. Text him at work and say, “Why don’t you pick up two steaks on the way home?”, and chances are he’ll cook them, too.
Never be too house proud
It’s tempting to aim for domestic perfection, but take note of The Good Life: who wants to be married to control-freak Margo when they can have playful, slapdash Barbara? If you start off by keeping an immaculate house, that is what will be expected of you, even when you have six children, three dogs and a parrot. If you’re a bit of a slattern, your husband will be shocked and thrilled after 15 years of marriage when he returns home one day to find you’ve hoovered.
Treat him like Pavlov’s dog
Ensure your spouse associates certain domestic tasks with rewards. Whenever your chap spontaneously mows the lawn, washes up, or takes the bins out, give him the equivalent of a doggy biscuit. Sex, Sky Sports or a cold beer (not necessarily in that order) work well with younger men; a couple of hour’s uninterrupted pottering are manna for older ones.
Take control of the thermostat
Most men won’t switch on the central heating until there are snowdrifts up at the window. You need to nip this practice in the bud. Wait for a chilly day, wrap yourself in shawls and lie on the sofa feigning hypothermia when your husband returns home. In those heady, early days, he should calculate your health is worth more than any fuel bill. Should he ever dare chide you about the radiators, simply remind him of “the day I nearly died”.
Don't do the dusting
Iris Murdoch didn’t believe in dusting, and neither should you. A well-filled mind is preferable to dust-free ornaments, and even an hour spent watching Loose Women will give you more to talk about with your hubbie than prancing around with a feather duster.
Pick your battles
It simply isn’t worth trying to reform all your husband’s bad habits. You’ll just exhaust yourself and he’ll pick you up on some of your own less savoury practices. One good friend has learnt to live with the fact her spouse likes to file his clothes on the bedroom floor because he now pulls his weight with childcare. Quid pro quo.
Give him space
Although it was Greta Grabo who said “I want to be alone”, in my experience it’s men who need essential lone time in their shed, or office, or garden, or canoe. One woman I know attributes the entire success of her 30-year marriage to the fact she doesn’t “harass” her husband when he returns home after work, but lets him spend an hour in his study listening to Beethoven.
Use buyer theory
My incredibly wise friend Anne has perfected the art of flexing her husband’s credit card after 30 years running a shipshape household. You tell him that you are head of acquisitions for the organisation and remind him that the chief buyer of organisations such as Liberty’s are paid top dollar for their taste and perspicacity, otherwise they’d go bust. Anne says: “Being in charge of the house is a job calling for the very highest sophistication, knowledge of markets and the value and wisdom of any purchase. You continually bang on about how fortunate it is that he has YOU at the helm, and not some wastrel floozy.”
Keep your hand on his wallet
Let your husband pay for your purchases, but don’t let him poke his nose in. If he tries to oversee your expenditure, remind him that he is fortunate in being unencumbered by the burden and sheer boredom of shopping. Should you see a crinkle of sceptism at putting all his cash at your disposal, produce dismal and alarming tales of women who make their man go shopping All The Time.
Insist on a morning cuppa
Strange but true: in all the successful marriages I know, the husband makes his wife a hot beverage most mornings. If you can’t cajole him to perform this one small, uxorious tribute, you won’t have much luck with anything else.
Insist on his 'n’ her bathrooms
You will never win the battle of the upturned loo seat. Make sure you have two lavatories and keep strictly to your own turf.
Get a pet
One day you are likely to have children and their effect on your lives will be hauntingly similar to the anarchists running riot in Fortnum & Mason. If you buy a cat or dog in those early, halcyon days, you’ll get used to mess, defecation, inconvenience and having a third party in the bed, and the shock post-baby to him won’t be so vast.
Claim to have achieved more with your day than you have
The great thing about being a housewife is that there’s no one there to snitch on you. If your husband suspects you of lolling, he may start allocating tasks, so pretend the laundry took five hours and never say you’ve been eating toast and listening to The Archers.
Remind your husband that you’re good at multi-tasking
One friend of mine listened to a business woman on the radio tell how she clinched an international merger by speakerphone from her private hospital bed. “That’s nothing,” she retorted. “Try negotiating with a toddler and a four-year-old over whether they should watch Teletubbies or Doctor Who, while simultaneously applying false nails to the four-year-old while in the notoriously tricky transition stage of labour – the one that involves fainting and vomiting.” Whatta woman.
Offer him a vision of life without you
There will be days when your husband points out that other women manage to have supper on the table, clean the loo and polish all the horse brasses. You just have to remind him that the other woman he’s thinking of is his mother (or his nanny), and if he wants to live with her and return to his tiny single bed, fine, go ahead!
Give him meaty tasks
Men of today are not workshy in the domestic sphere – they just prefer a proper task to something piddling like loading the dishwasher. The wise woman makes a list of epic missions for the weekend, such as taking old fridge to dump, digging out Japanese knotweed and weather-proofing lighthouse.
Don’t expect him to be telepathic
Many wives chide their husband because he doesn’t know where household essentials are stowed – but if the poor chap’s out all day and she’s never shown him round his shelves, then he won’t have a clue. You can’t berate a man for his ignorance if you’ve kept the knowledge from him.
Don’t insist on doing everything together
Newly-wed women tend to make a great play of togetherness, feigning interest in all their husband’s hobbies. Abandon this practice asap. If you didn’t much fancy an air show, a 60-mile hike or a Star Wars convention when you were single, you certainly won’t relish it in 20 years time.
Assure him he’s the better driver
Whatever the falsehood of the statement – and even when it’s he who took the wing mirror off the neighbour’s car, not you – it is a fact that every male believes himself to be a terrific and safe driver. Reassuring him of the fact is the second only to telling him how great he is in bed as a way of bolstering his machismo.
Never compare him unfavourably to your father
Many of the wives I know lament their husband’s inability, when compared to their Dad, to put up a shelf, kill and skin a rabbit, change a spark plug or build a barn. Not only does this criticism make it ever less likely that their partner will wield a screwdriver or a gun, we women don’t seem to ask ourselves why we can’t knock up a quilt, a herb garden and a Victoria sponge before supper’s served.
Remind him how lucky he is
As part of his ongoing education, sit your spouse down in front of Molly Dineen’s 1987 documentary, Home from the Hill. This featured 70-year-old Lieutenant-Colonel Hilary Hook who, having returned to England from Kenya, was seen struggling to use a tin opener. Hook struggled to cope with modern life and it became clear Bridget Jones wasn’t the only singleton facing extinction. Tell your husband: “This is you in forty years time if you hadn’t married me.” He should get your point.
Be realistic with your renovations
Realise that there are certain things in people that will never change, and you’ll only be throwing bad energy after good if you get exercised about them. Persistently late people never learn to be early and misanthropes never say, “Hurrah! We’ve been asked to a party.” Just deal with it.
