Does your husband still love you? Put him through these tests that Gen-Z swear by
In my schooldays, my girl friends and I spent a high proportion of our time ‘calculating’ if this boy or that boy was going to be ‘The One’ with various arcane customs.
Like peeling your satsuma in one go, which allowed you to throw the peel over your shoulder and see what letter shape it fell into. I made the mistake of being mad about a boy called Harry. Forming an ‘H’ with the peel is unlikely, so that was that.
Today, this kind of obsessive hopefulness has found a new home on TikTok. But modern young women are putting their partners to the test in rather more practical ways.
I decided to put my husband of 26 years, who is the father of my two grown-up children, through the new romantic hoops. Read on to see how Anthony got on…
THE ORANGE TEST
Ask your partner to peel an orange for you. If they do it without hesitation then they pass. If they complain, question it or refuse, the omens are not good.
My husband is a big fan of the morning grapefruit and I often sling in a request for a segment, so he’s well-trained. But I make sure to ask when we are both deep in the Sunday papers. He gets up and does it unquestioningly. Boom, Cupid’s arrow hits.
One viral test is to ask your partner to peel an orange for you. If they do it without hesitation then they pass, but if they complain, question it or refuse, the omens are not good...
THE BECKHAM TEST
Last year, David and Victoria Beckham, married for nearly 25 years, released their hit Netflix documentary. One clip of the couple dancing to Islands In The Stream by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers went viral on TikTok. This, according to the internet, was peak ‘couple goals’.
To find out if your partnership matches up to the Beckhams’, put on the song and start dancing. If your partner joins in, you pass.
I make sure to put Islands In The Stream on in that slightly flirty hour my husband and I have in the kitchen, when I prepare supper and he mixes a drink and feeds the dogs. I press play.
‘What the hell is this music?’ he grimaces. ‘Can’t you put something decent on?’ Total fail.
Next day, I choose one of his favourites, Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves by Cher, and, sure enough, he responds to my swaying overtures by dancing with me. I’m chalking it up as a victory.
THE BIRD TEST
This one examines how your partner reacts to you talking about something seemingly insignificant, like a bird outside your window. Relationship gurus at the Gottman Institute in America set great store by these ‘bids for connection’, because if your partner responds with genuine curiosity, it’s a sign that they are hardwired to connect with you at any level.
‘Look, the robin is back!’ I trill, gesturing at the garden. Anthony responds immediately, coming up behind me. ‘Really? Where? Wow! Has he gone through his moult yet?’ I flutter my hands weakly, to indicate that the bird has flown.
I have a nagging feeling the bird test shouldn’t result in that much excitement — but, hey, we passed.
A clip of David and Victoria Beckham dancing during their Netflix documentary was described as peak 'couple goals', so why not test your partner into dancing with you unprovoked?
THE STRAWBERRY TEST
This test involves asking your partner innocuous questions about a fantasy scenario. Their answers give an insight into the stability of your relationship. So:
1. Picture a field of strawberries behind a fence. You’re hungry. How high is the fence?
2. You go into the field and steal berries. How many do you eat?
3. A farmer appears and starts shouting. What do you say?
4. How did the berries taste and how did you feel stealing them?
The height of the fence your partner pictures symbolises their self-control — the higher the fence, the higher their level of resistance to sexual temptation.
The number of berries eaten is the amount of people they can see themselves in love with at one time. Their response to the farmer is the way they’d respond if they were caught cheating. And the way they felt afterwards is how they’d feel about the affair.
At a dinner party, a few glasses of wine in, I announce that we’re playing a game. ‘Anthony, you start. You’re on a walk…’
He passes with flying colours. He chooses a 6ft fence, eats only four strawberries, and apologises to the farmer for succumbing to temptation, expressing regret for his weakness — it all means he is unlikely to stray and will be honest if he does. I feel slightly smug.
But I do worry for my friends Kay and Xander, since Kay’s response was to imagine an ankle-high fence and swiping ‘as many strawberries as I can eat’, which indicates wild infidelity and zero regrets.
