Jackie Danicki

This woman makes me break out in hives. Reading this article - where, for once, she doesn’t mention that Cherie Blair is her sister - I cringed about a thousand times. Lauren, it’s pretty easy:

1) Hire someone to do the cleaning and ironing. Even in London, you can easily find someone to do this for £10 an hour or under; in the Dordogne, it will cost you less.

2) Tell your husband to get his own bank account, if he doesn’t already have one. Set up a monthly direct debit of his ‘wages’ so that you don’t have to have that awkward moment of handing over an envelope of cash.

3) Stop saying that your husband is not contributing financially. He contributes financially by looking after your children (who, from the sound of it, absolutely love having him around - which I suspect is what really bothers you). He is also, as you point out, adding value to your real estate by converting your barn into a five bedroom house all by himself.

4) Get over yourselves, both of you. You have a house in the Dordogne, an income which is certainly into six figures, two healthy children, and more work coming in than your ‘journalism’ skills or family ties justify. If your biggest problem is that the only thing you have to show for your husband’s work are two well-adjusted daughters and a pile in the south of France that sells for much more than you paid for it, I will save myself the cost of a condolence card.

Filed under: Life, Men and Women, Relationships, Work