Damien drains his glass, puts it on the bar and turns to me. "Do you want to get married?"

"Not at this very moment," I joke. "Right now I'd prefer a drink."
He rolls his eyes at me and motions to the barman. "I'm being serious."
I try to look chastised. "No."
"Why not?"
I could marshal arguments – that it's an outmoded institute, a patriarchal construct, or that I see no reason to involve the church or state in my personal affairs – but none of those are the real reasons. It's my brother's fault.
I'm seven years old and in the pub with my parents. My mother is sitting down, holding David on her lap. She has a handbag, nappy bag, bottles, soothers and a stroller. Over at the bar my father is with his friends. They are laughing and smoking cigarettes.
"I'm never going to get married," I tell my mother. "Or have babies."
"Why's that?" she asks.
"You have to carry too many things."
Her friends laugh at me, but I'm serious. Marriage looks like a lot 
of work.
I can't tell Damien this – it's silly. Instead I deflect the question. "Who'd have me?"
"I meant to me," he says.
I nearly choke on my drink. "Are you proposing to me?"
"Yes. But I don't mean now – in the future sometime."
"Is this some scheme to get me to sleep with you?"
"Of course not," he says. "We love one another. We have similar characters, values and backgrounds. We enjoy each other's company. This way we could pool our resources and keep each other company when we're older.
"We're not in love," I point out.
"Look how well that works for most people."
Couples – they all have stories: pain, abuse, disappointment, betrayal, complications, frustrated desires, heartbreak and loss. The truth is, I'm scared – I don't think it's worth 
the risk.

Michael is in love with Amy; Amy is in love with Michael.
"I could see myself spending the rest of my life with her," he says.
"You haven't told her that, have you?" I ask.
He shakes his head and I let out I sigh of relief.
"Whatever you do, don't," I say. "It wouldn't be fair."
I'm worried about this situation. Michael may be in love with Amy, but he loves his wife Kate too. Someone is going to get hurt – it's unavoidable.
"It's not just sex," he tells me.
"That's the problem."
It's possible that Kate would overlook Michael's sexual indiscretions – she has before – but I doubt she would forgive him for falling in love with someone else. He tells me he is going to stop seeing Amy, but a month later he still is. What's more, getting found out is now the least of his worries – he thinks Kate is cheating on him too.
"It's like a bloody soap opera," 
I say.
I feel sorry for him, but under the sympathy there is a small kernel of smugness – my life is so much easier than his.

Jacqui gets mean when she drinks, and she drinks a lot. At the pub she knocks back several vodkas and shots of tequila. She's stumbling, slurring and getting messy. Cian wants her to come home and she roars at him. "Fuck off!"
Cian can't leave. Their friends won't take responsibility for Jacqui, nor would he expect them to, and she is too drunk to get home by herself.
Cian thinks of all the bad things that could happen to his wife if he left her alone: she could get knocked over, raped, robbed or suffocate on her own vomit.
He sits outside the pub in the cold waiting for closing time.

Joel's wife is cheating on him with his friend. It's not the infidelity he minds as much as the public humiliation. Everybody knows – Cara is not discreet.
I wonder if this is payback. I wonder if she knows Joel has been cheating on her too. I wonder if she knows it's with a man.

Alan wants to have sex with me. I blame myself. I probably should not have sat on his lap or worn such a short skirt.
He runs his hand across my thigh, but stops short of my underwear. When no one is looking, he tickles the underside of my breasts. Later, out in the garden, he tries to kiss me, but I move my head out of the way.
It's not much, yet, but it's wrong. He is getting married, remarried actually, to his ex-wife. Her name is also Anne and I've known her for half my life. I love them both. I don't want to be responsible for them splitting up.
I need to speak to someone, so I speak to Sally. Her advice is emphatic. It's also the one thing I don't want to do.
"You have to tell Mom and Dad," she says. My father is furious. He's screaming down the phone at Alan. He's threatening to shoot him. My father has both a temper and a gun, so this is entirely possible. He puts his arms around me and bursts into tears.
"I'm sorry," I tell him.
"It's not your fault, Andy Pandy," he says. "You're only thirteen."

Daniel tells me that Maeve is sleeping with someone from work. I hope it's true.
Daniel is not looking for a confidante – he's a bastard. Maeve is fat; Maeve is ugly; Maeve is stupid; Maeve is a slut – I've heard it all before.
Maeve is crying in the bedroom; I'm comforting her, but also silently praying for my taxi to arrive.
"It's emotional abuse," I tell her.
"It's marriage," she says.

Richard and Julie have disappeared. Everybody knows what's going on, but nobody says anything. The atmosphere is tense. I whisper to my mother, "Can we leave?"
She shakes her head. "We can't. We've been drinking on empty stomachs."
It's an hour home and the highway is a dangerous combination of trucks, buses, speeders and traffic police. My mother is not willing to risk it. My father is tending the barbeque. This is not his job – it's Richard's, but he is too busy to worry about feeding his guests. Julie's husband is asleep in his chair. I hope he doesn't wake up.

I go out. I meet a man – a friend of a friend. It's one of those great first meetings where everything just clicks. We talk; we laugh; we dance. The attraction is mutual and unmistakeable. I'm pretty smitten.
I really ought to go home. Instead I go to the bar.
Maybe it's a crush or maybe I've had too much to drink but at three in the morning I think I could fall in love with him. Given my feelings, the worst thing I could possibly do is to have sex with him – Boy B is married.
Sleeping with him would only make it worse.
He doesn't ask and I don't offer. He wraps his arms around me. I lean against his chest and listen to his heart beat. We pull apart and I get into a taxi. Alone.

Three months before my parents' fortieth wedding anniversary, my father passed away. My strong, smart, capable mother is devastated. I've only seen her cry twice before, now she is finding it difficult to stop.
"Every morning for thirty-nine years your father told me he loved me," she says. "And every month he bought me a little present when he got paid."
I had no idea. To me he was a father; only after he was gone did I realise that to my mother he was a husband – and a lover.

Couples – they all have stories: pain, abuse, disappointment, betrayal, complications, frustrated desires, heartbreak, loss, but joy, romance, sex and laughter too – maybe it is worth the risk.