Sharon Horgan, writer and actress, gate-crashes six very different marriages and a wedding in a bid to open up to the private world of husbands and wives.  Sharon says, ‘everyone knows what they want from a wedding – drunk by noon, quick go on a bridesmaid, chocolate fountain – but what do we want from a marriage?’ She admits marriage is a serious, lifelong commitment but nobody tells you how to do it. Sharon meets six different couples to explore the essence of a lifelong and happy marriage. She wants to find out how they’ve made it work and what she can learn about marriage from their relationships.

Sharon spends time with the each of the couples detailed below:

Tantric sex teachers Kavida and Roland think there’s no reason why marriage should get in the way of a ‘mind-blowing sex life’.  Everything they do together is sexy: whether it’s shopping, walking or even drinking tea.

‘Louella’ has a different story: her husband isn’t interested in sex, and tolerates her having a lover so they can stay married.   She is a dab hand on the marital dating scene and finds her lovers online.

Chris and Norma have a 32 year age gap. Chris was 18 when he was bewitched by 50 year old Norma on holiday. He proposed within 2 months and they’ve been married for 13 years. Norma describes herself as a ‘mother and his lover’.

Steven and Shelly saved their marriage by the ‘elimination of feminism in their relationship’.  They run a marriage website, and tell wives to look to the natural world for inspiration – lions in particular. ‘Mrs Lion’ goes to get the food and ‘Mr Lion’ protects the pack.

Lydia and Andrew have swapped roles: she’s the alpha female, he’s the house husband. Andrew’s daily routine is shopping, cleaning cooking and doing the school run. Lydia’s is conferences and airports as she’s a management consultant. She tries not to micro manage from afar and he tries to stick to her menu plans.

Chas and Diane & Jo and Graham are two couples and Diane and Jo are identical twins. They have lived together in the same house for 23 years and their four children have been raised as siblings. They share everything together with the exception of each other’s wives and the bedrooms. What’s the point of wife swapping when they both look the same?

Lifestyle online course

More information about Lifestyle:

Lifestyle is the interests, opinions, behaviours, and behavioural orientations of an individual, group, or culture.
The term was introduced by Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler with the meaning of “a person’s basic character as established early in childhood”.
For example, in his 1929 book “The Case of Miss R.”. The broader sense of lifestyle as a “way or style of living” has been documented since 1961.
Lifestyle is a combination of determining intangible or tangible factors.
Tangible factors relate specifically to demographic variables, i.e. an individual’s demographic profile,
whereas intangible factors concern the psychological aspects of an individual such as personal values, preferences, and outlooks.

A rural environment has different lifestyles compared to an urban metropolis.
Location is important even within an urban scope.
The nature of the neighborhood in which a person resides affects the set of lifestyles available
to that person due to differences between various neighborhoods’ degrees of affluence and proximity to natural and cultural environments.
For example, in areas near the sea, a surf culture or lifestyle can often be present.