Together forever?

Happily ever after?

Husband and wife are lost for words in BBC drama

TV preview by Claire Brine

SHE can’t believe they are having

an argument over a jacket potato. He can’t believe that she ordered him some fries, when she knew he would have wanted a jacket potato. Behind the smiley faces they wear in public, a husband and wife are struggling to hide their frustration with one another in the BBC One drama Marriage, which starts tomorrow (Sunday 14 August).

After a relaxing holiday in sunny Spain, married couple Emma (Nicola Walker) and Ian (Sean Bean) have landed back home in drizzly England. Once they’ve unpacked their luggage, flicked through the post and thrown away the mouldy food from the fridge, they go to visit Emma’s dad, who resents the fact that his daughter went on holiday, leaving him behind. Though Emma tries to lighten the mood by talking about swimming in the sea, conversation is stilted. There are awkward pauses. Emma is relieved when it’s time to leave.

Though sympathetic to his wife’s situation, Ian is struggling with his own problems. His mum has recently died – but he doesn’t talk about it. And he finds it hard to fill his days since being made redundant from his job. He jokes that he’s enjoying the

Ian and Emma

‘freedom’ of not having to go to work, but his face tells a different story.

Picking up on the difficulties facing her parents is daughter Jessica (Chantelle Alle), who tells her boyfriend that Ian and Emma ‘don’t really talk’. She feels that they avoid expressing emotion because of a painful loss they faced in the past. She’s not wrong.

Screenwriter Stefan Golaszewski points out that – whether people are married or not – communication is often challenging. Working out what we want to say and then saying it requires courage.

‘People find things difficult and they don’t really know what they feel,’ he says. ‘They think they feel one thing but often feel something else. They often don’t know what to say to each other.’

In all kinds of relationships, there are times when it’s hard to talk. Perhaps we are wary of being misunderstood, so we keep our mouth shut. Or we feel ashamed of our thoughts and would rather ignore them than risk sharing them with someone.

It might be that we long to offload our burdens but don’t know how to. It could be that we have no one to listen to us. When talking feels impossible, it’s a relief to know that someone understands what we are going through. Before we have even said anything, God is already with us – willing to help us process There are times our emotions if we ask him. When we tell him how we when it’s hard to talk feel, he promises to listen. One Bible writer expressed it like this: ‘You have searched me, Lord, and you know me… Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely’ (Psalm 139: 1 and 4 New International Version). The things we can’t tell anyone else, we can always say to God. No subject is off limits. No time is inconvenient. When we tell him what’s on our mind, we can trust that he is listening and wants to help us. When we ask for his guidance and comfort, he promises to give it. In every situation we’re in, God loves us – for better, for worse.