Esther McCarthy: Foolproof ways to stop your husband cheating
Lily Allen attends the Charles Finch and Chanel 2024 Pre-Bafta Party at the Hertford Street Club, London. Picture date: Saturday February 17, 2024.
I've been listening to Lily Allen’s new album. I’ve even coughed up the €11.99 for a Spotify Premium account so I could listen without ads. You’re welcome for that 000.07 cents you’ll see of it, Lil.
If all art is personal, then this is like her giving us the keys to her diary.
With forensic precision, and the occasional flamethrower, she really lays bare the collapse of her marriage to Stranger Things star David Harbour, turning heartbreak into art and gossip into melody.
(And here my husband does be worrying about what I’m writing about in this column! This is chicken feed. Lily’s there singing about uncovering sordid affairs and her fella leading a double life, and I’m getting the side eye over lying about how often I change the bedclothes in last week’s column.)
West End Girl is like a mix of a love letter and a public postmortem. It’s her first album in seven years, apparently recorded after discovering her husband Harbour’s three-year affair and assorted extracurriculars. The insecure langball.
But it’s the outro on the titular track that gets me. It’s Lily talking, giving us her side of a phone call, where Mr Charmy McCharmington is asking her for an open marriage.
She’s saying things like, “Well — if that’s what you need to do, then I guess...How will it work? It makes me really sad.. I just want you to be happy.”
He shouldn’t be HAPPY. He’s married. Silly billy Lily! Happy? Jesus Christ. NO. I know hindsight is 20/20, but here’s some techniques for what Lily SHOULD have done with Mr Stranger Things.
I reckon Davey boy wouldn’t have been fluthering around the place setting up Pussy Palaces and keeping Duane Reade in business buying all those ridiculous sexy time accoutrements, if she’d just employed some of these fun tips. You can try these at home too.
An even keel is a dead relationship in my book. Keep your husband in a constant state of slight bafflement.
Bonus points if you ever catch him staring at himself in the mirror, questioning his sanity. Insist you don’t want a gift for Christmas, for example.
You start with the pragmatic suggestions of saving the money you both would have spent to buy something practical for the house. Hey, even millionaires appreciate a bit of thrift now and then.
Pepper conversations with measured reasons why you don’t need anything. Your presence is my present, you should say, looking deep into his eyes and drawing a finger softly down the side of his face.
He must be utterly convinced so that when, on December 25, you reveal a giant gift-wrapped box with some ludicrously thoughtful gift for him, the horror on his face as he sits empty-handed is actually the best present he could have given you.
But he must never know. Do practice your martyred sigh for when he gabbles, dry swallows, and tries to explain he took you at your word. The fool! Hahaha!
This really will only work the once, so make it count. He’ll have lost 3lbs in sweat, and you’ll have gained the upper hand for at least a week.
If only Lily had planked the passports in her underwear drawer, David might not have had the bandwidth to manage multiple affairs.
Make sure only you have the PIN for the joint account. Make friends with your insurance broker so the emails only come to you.
Secretly cancel the Tesco Club Card he uses, so he has to ask you for your one when he’s at the till, trying to buy something that costs 10000% more without that precious barcode.
The man will kiss your feet and know that his life would crumble without you.
Alpha male-type dating coaches suggest using this technique to attract a female, but we can use it for our own devices.
Negging is a form of emotional manipulation disguised as a compliment, the kind that stings more than it flatters. It’s designed to chip away at confidence and make someone doubt their worth.
For example, a man might say to a woman they’re trying to pick up in a bar — “Don’t you look fabulous? Most women your size wouldn’t have the courage to wear a dress like that.”
Or “I usually date models, but you’ve got something interesting about you.”
But wives, listen up! We can employ it at home. Use your imagination. Pretend your father suggested the way your husband cuts the grass is inferior to the way you saw it done growing up.
Allude to his Movember attempt to grow a moustache as ‘cute’, and assure him that low testosterone is no reason to feel less of a man. Anything that lands a bit of long-term psychological damage will do, really.
Or 4, when it all goes tits up, annihilate him publicly through a best-selling album.
Lily, I salute you.
