Q: This can be a deal breaker for many or be viewed as a lot of work to take on, which might be a strain on the relationship. If your partner is a big family person, this may be something you have to consciously tackle. Failure to do so may mean resentment or frustration building up and being taken out on your relationship. Your partner will notice if you never want to spend time with their friends and family, and it will become more of a divisive issue the longer it goes on.
The kids have grown, retirement is still a distant vista and while you perhaps don’t have to go as far as redoing your vows, saying ‘I do want this now for our marriage’ is a healthy thing to do.
In Spain, Hildegart Rodríguez is known as the Red Virgin. Now, a much wider audience will be introduced to her life in an Amazon TV drama starring Najwa Nimri and Alba Planas.
Recently a few of our friends got engaged, and it’s made me think about my own relationship with my partner. We have been together for three years, and we both said at the start that we weren’t looking for anything serious, but it actually did become serious quickly. We love being together, but when I was talking to him about our friends getting engaged, he said he thought they were wrong to get engaged and that you don’t need to get married these days. I suppose I hadn’t really thought about it like that, and it’s making me think about what I want going forward. I always thought I would get married, but never really gave it much thought. I don’t know if I would regret not having a wedding and the feeling of security a marriage would give me. Our parents have never put pressure on us to get married, even though they are married themselves. I just don’t know, and I know that I am coming up to 30 soon so I think I should look at this, but I’m not sure where to start.
Teenagers will be taught a new RSE – relationships and sexuality education – syllabus next year, replacing a wildly out-of-date curriculum that was introduced before Google existed and a mobile phone could barely fit in your pocket.