What I've learned from 11 years of marriage

This piece originally ran in Good Housekeeping magazine this time last year. But, because it never went online, you won’t have seen it unless you happened to buy the magazine that month. In it, I shared what I had learned from ten years of marriage, and one year since my cancer diagnosis. Now, two years on from that diagnosis, it feels as relevant as ever…

When Jonathan and I got married in January 2012, I remember thinking how nice it was that a depressing time of year would be forever cheerier. Traditionally a month of dark mornings, post-festive comedowns and broken resolutions, we would now always have something to celebrate. But that altered in January 2021 when, in the week that the nation was plunged back into lockdown, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was the day before our ninth wedding anniversary.

We met in 2009 at the Cannes Film Festival: both of us journalists making the most of the free drinks at a rooftop party. Surrounded by nerds bleating on about some auteur or …