Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall didn't need to share a house, let alone a bathroom. Photo / AP
Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall didn't need to share a house, let alone a bathroom. Photo / AP
Opinion
OPINION:
We're pretty jaded when it comes to celebrity divorces; these days we barely notice them. Not so with the sudden ending of Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall's marriage.
Murdoch and Hall's divorce has us amazed because this is a couple who could glide on through the next few years– they wouldn't even need to share a house let alone a bathroom – but the story is he wants a clean break and the rumour is that it all boils down to her liking a ciggie. In other words they've fallen foul of a Critical Compatibility Issue (CCI).
This can't be just about fags you might say, but… oh yes it can. CCI is all about sharing the same point of view, not on the issues you think matter (politics, money, the children's educations) but those other key areas which somehow grind you down. No one ever spells this out properly and evidently the message is not getting through. So here goes.
It's possible for one of you to take a step back while the other one keeps glugging on, but what's critical is having drinkers' DNA or not. You either understand the pull of a largely liquid lunch in the sun or you can't imagine anything more dreary and time wasting.
What doesn't seem to work is one spouse not drinking during the week, and the other one accidentally sleeping on the stairs. Photo / Anton Mizlawsky, Unsplash
You either perk up at the prospect of a Friday-night cocktail or you think "Urg. Here goes. One hour until slurrings." As the marriage goes on you need to recalibrate, keep re-reading the booze rules, and stick in roughly the same zone. What doesn't seem to work is one of you not drinking during the week, and the other one accidentally sleeping on the stairs.
Nancy Shevell is slim as a pin and trim Macca stands on his head for 10 minutes a day. These days this stuff is paramount in a relationship. If a bit of smoking is grounds for divorce then a secret burger habit and an absolute refusal to get in touch with your third eye definitely is. You no longer need to share a religion but you need to have a similar attitude to food and health. New rule.
Nancy Shevell is slim as a pin and Paul McCartney stands on his head for 10 minutes a day. These days this stuff is paramount in a relationship. Photo / AP
Culture
One of you loves the theatre, the other one was last in a theatre to see Mamma Mia!… One of you never reads, one of you never stops. When she was interviewed by Vogue, Camilla remarked that she and Charles are like ships that pass in the night but they like to sit in separate corners of a room reading a book whenever they can.
On this basis alone we concluded that all is rock-solid in that marriage. That plus the fact that she had lost her stick-on nails gardening (another mutual interest). You can't be out of whack culturally. You can't be "Look I've got the last tickets to Jerusalem! Woo hoo!" and the other one has Pilates plans.
Time keeping
Are you skin of the teeth or allow extra time? Will you get out of the cab and run to make it there at the appointed hour or assume 40 minutes late is not the end of the world? This one is connected to organisation, planning, priorities and reliability, maybe even thoughtfulness and where you sit on the selfish scale, so it's a bigger deal than you'd think. The couple who never arrive together may not stay together.
The couple who never arrive together may not stay together. Photo / Mitchell Hollander, Unsplash
Emotional intelligence
One of you can be smart, one not so smart, but crucially you must both be adept at spotting a bulls******, an anxious person behaving like a bore, a mean person posing as a good person, a good person posing as an angry person – and know without hesitation that the other one will have their number, too.
One of you can be smart, one not so smart, but crucially you must both not give a stuff. If one of you is secretly thinking "bloody hell why am I always in the kitchen cooking lunch when I could be discussing solutions to the cost of living crisis", this is a critical CCI. Next thing you know you'll be nipping off for a Mensa test and he'll have to follow suit and then everything will fall apart – which is exactly what happened to Fern Britton's first marriage, so she tells us.
Being first to the bar to buy a round
You're either a first to the bar type or someone who feels happy for having got away without having paid for a drink all night. You're either fishing in the tip to see if there's too much or throwing in a bit extra. You're either buying your wife the yellow roses because they're cheaper or you're buying the peonies. Tight or not tight. Also critical.
Tight or not tight. Also critical. Photo / Allef Vinicius, Unsplash
Music
No one ever said you both have to love the exact same music (though it probably helps); the CCI in a relationship is the degree to which you both care. Is one of you not just a fan of Running Up That Hill but word-perfect on the whole of Hounds of Love, and the other "…that sounds a bit 1980s"? Were you both weeping in front of Glastonbury, or was one of you checking their inbox in the other room, with the door shut to block out the nah nahs? Big one this.
