‘I want to be alone . . .’ Each and every one of us has a God-given right to respect, privacy, trust, honesty. But of all of them, it is privacy that is the most sacrosanct, inviolate, untouchable.

You must respect your partner’s privacy as they must yours. If you don’t, you have to question all those other things – trust, respect, honesty – as well. If they are all missing, what you’ve got there isn’t a relationship and quite frankly I don’t know what it is, except that it belongs in the morgue. So we’ll assume you have a good and healthy relationship. This means you have respect for your partner’s privacy. In all areas.

If they choose not to discuss something with you, then that is their right and you do not have the right to:

• wheedle
• threaten
• emotionally blackmail
• bribe
• withhold privileges
• try and find out by underhand means and methods.

And no, charming them out of it counts as a no-no as well. Privacy isn’t just about not opening someone’s post or listening to their telephone messages or reading their emails when they’re not looking. Privacy is also about making sure they can carry out their ablutions on their own – we all need a certain degree of grace and dignity in our lives and separate bathroom activities is the standard bottom line actually. Sharing a bathroom all the time isn’t desirable, at least not for all activities. Ugh, how horrid. If you can’t have separate bathrooms at least have some separate privacy in the bathroom. I know shared baths and the like can be very intimate and romantic, but you don’t have to cut your toenails or squeeze your blackheads in front of each other. Don’t do it. Winston Churchill said the reason he managed to stay married for 56 years – or however long it was – was separate bathrooms. So keep yourself to yourself in your more intimate ablutions and make sure you don’t intrude on anyone else’s privacy. You can extend this Rule to everyone else in the entire universe, not just your partner.

If you feel a need to intrude on someone else’s privacy, you have to take a long hard look at yourself and fathom out why. The truth may be unpalatable, but you have to know it.