8 good reasons why no one should trade in their partner for a younger model

Why being with someone who isn't a decade or two younger is the best possible idea all round. Photo / 123RF

Apparently, we are into the season of trading in the old wife for the much younger model.

There will be some men considering the pros of a younger partner (someone to Worship Me after years of being treated like the house simpleton) and a lot of women contemplating the cons (having to leave your home of 35 years and start dating men with ear hair). What can you do?

Fight back is what! Remind ourselves of the positives of same-age marriage. Put together a list of all the reasons why being with someone who isn't a decade or two younger is the best possible idea all round.

Compatible energy levels

Seriously, what is the bounce and glitter of youth (or relative youth) compared with someone who definitely does not want to go out to a club at 2am, who has no interest in Jagerbombs, and no desire to dance to Drake. Younger people set their alarms to go to raves: isn't that the marital equivalent of waterboarding?

Having grown-up friends, or as grown-up as you are

Outside a same-age marriage, you could end up spending the evenings with people who use the word "awesome" and think of Debbie Harry as really old.

Same-age marriage means not having to hang out with people who never eat marmalade or buy a newspaper - or shave.

Consideration for your children

Obviously. Children do not want to think of their parents having sex and if you stick to your age group they'll never have to.

Shared experience

The opposite of that is someone who has never smoked on an aeroplane, or washed their hair with one of those hoses you attach to the taps; who has no clue what Asteroids was, or a Joan Collins Cinzano ad, or who Susan Penhaligon is ... Horrible.

Musical harmony

This is a big one. Huge, if your scratched copy of After the Goldrush is still the album you are both most likely to put on at 3am. Can there be anything more nails-on-blackboard than someone who thinks Alexandra Burke was the first person to sing Hallelujah?

Being extremely critical of everything, and being very comfortable with that

Perhaps you think: "Ah, but that's precisely the attraction of a younger person: they are not cynical". Well, yes, if they're your children.

But your other half, banging on about giving Jeremy Corbyn a chance, or the importance of sleeping with a crystal under your pillow, or the advantages of colonic irrigation? Don't think so.

Sex: being on the same page

You can say: "No look, hang on, I'm lying on my specs/toenail clippers/buying a ping pong table on eBay", and it's totally fine because they Get It, and they were probably looking for an excuse to keep reading The Week.

The I-know-what-I-like phase

You're both past all the same stuff at the same stage. It's not that you are no longer open to new experience, just that a lot of experiences are not new to you. You know that camping at festivals is hell. You have tried thrillers (no, Gone Girl is not going to be any different).

You have risen at dawn to see the Buriburi bird, and hung out with rodeo cowboys and driven down route 101. What's the point if you have to do all that stuff all over again because your partner has 30 years of catching up to do?

Same-age couples rock.