There have been moments when journalist and recovering alcoholic Bryony Gordon thought her husband Harry Wilson would divorce her.
“Some people sober up and they realise they're married to an a***hole. I sobered up and realised I was the a***hole,” Bryony told Ateh Jewel on this week’s Second Act podcast.
The author of People Pleaser has suffered from OCD and depression throughout her life and ended up in rehab after skipping a family trip to see her husband’s parents to instead drink herself to ‘oblivion’. “I realised if I didn’t do something about it, I would die,” she admits.
“People are surprised that we're still together. If I ever make the mistake of looking at those awful websites where people gossip about people they're always like, I can't believe he's still with her. She's a nightmare. He must have the patience of a saint. I see sometimes in my friends they are surprised we’re still together.
"But he's my best mate. I've continuously tried to scare him off. Even now I'm like, ‘oh, maybe we should just get a divorce.’ And he's like, OK. And I'm like, do you want to get a divorce? He's like, ‘no, not really.’
“He's shown me that I should love myself through love. Sometimes people love you until you love yourself. And that's definitely what happened with Harry.”
The secret to keeping their relationship solid, she says lies in the bedroom.
It was what happened in the bedroom that got them together in the first place — but now sleeping apart she says is what keeps them together.
“We'd only been going out for about 10 seconds, then I discovered I was pregnant and it was all a bit of a shock. It all happened quite quickly. It was supposed to be that way,” the mother to Edie, 13, reveals.
“People are often like, oh, how are you even with Harry? We're not a very demonstrative couple. We're not passionate or anything like that.
Separate beds
“We don't share beds because I need my sleep. I want to sleep and he wants to watch documentaries on his iPad in bed. And I'm like, ‘this is not helping me sleep. It's very annoying.’
“We're going away to stay with friends and we will share a bed because obviously I can't be like, could you give us two guest rooms and I'm quite looking forward to it.”
According to a recent survey by the National Bed Foundation, they are not the only ones to make the decision to sleep apart for the sake of their marriage.
Nearly one in six (15%) British couples who live together now sleep apart – with almost nine out of 10 (89%) of them doing so in separate rooms.
Simon Williams of the NBF explains: “There are no rights and wrongs when it comes to sleeping arrangements and the older generation seems to be more accepting of this with many of them not only sleeping in separate beds but separate rooms.
“The underlying message has to be that people will do whatever it takes to get a great night’s sleep – and that has to be a good thing."
