Being married can be a tough gig at times, even when you’re part of a family which has been divinely selected to rule over the United Kingdom in perpetuity and is worth roughly £65 billion.
So ahead of ‘that wedding’, we’ve collected some of the most helpful pieces of wisdom ever shared with Esquire when we’ve asked the simple question: what makes a relationship work?
From Oscar winning actors to businessmen to designers, this is what they’ve had to say. Thank us later, Harry.
“It’s about learning to give and take, learning to be interested, and interesting, learning to not just talk about yourself, listening to how their day has been, as well as your day. It’s just keeping your feet on the ground. Do the washing up. Wipe the tops. I love that. It’s so therapeutic.”
“All marriages have ups and downs. If you fight through whatever the problem is and solve it then you’ll end up staying together. If you’d rather be bitter and not communicate then you create chasms that can’t be crossed.”
– Samuel L Jackson
“The reason I think I’m in a happy relationship now is because I manage my expectations. I don’t see my partner as a carer or someone who’s meant to generate joy for me, but as an independent person that I share my life with. The problem is that we don’t recognise the parameters of consumerism. I don’t think we see how entrenched it has become in our mentality, that we look at all experience as something we can somehow devour or use.”
– Russell Brand
“Honesty is important in a relationship. One time in the early days of us dating, Susanne made us a fish pie, and it was rank. So I told her. It still crops up now and again, 20 years later. But I had to tell her or she’d make it again, I’d still be eating it. That’s the problem with people – they tip-toe around each other. She’s had haircuts and I’ve gone: ‘Why have you done that? What a horrible style’. And I want her to be honest with me.”
– Karl Pilkington
Source: Esquire
