Dear Mariella

Facing the music

Mariella Frostrup

The Observer, Sunday 10 September 2006

The dilemma

My husband and I have been happily married for eight years, and he's always harboured ambitions of being a bit of a (tortured) rock star, although he works in sales and marketing. I've always (over-) praised his songwriting talents, and now we are in our late thirties, he's started taking his hobby more and more seriously: dyeing his hair and wearing make-up and skinny jeans - even to work. Frankly, he's looking like a podgy Kelly Osbourne with a combover. I, on the other hand, am feeling increasingly broody. To be honest, his songs and singing are at best brave, but in reality appalling. As he's become more serious about his popstar ambitions, so I've become more brutal in my appreciation of them. He thinks my criticism is to get him to abandon his passions and lifelong yearning in order to settle down and have children. In the meantime, he believes our 'emotional traumas' are a rich source for his songs, which include 'Baby Brambles' and 'Iced Scream'. I'm starting to feel extremely stretched and vexed by the whole thing. How can the delusional fog be lifted so he can join me on the daily planet while keeping our relationship intact?

Baby Brambles? Oh dear. Please tell me he came up with that before Pete Doherty made his mark on the tabloid-buying public; let's face it, he was never headed for the Music Hall of Fame. Neither, I fear, is your husband, but perhaps we should keep that between ourselves for now. He seems to have got all his idols jumbled up. The skinny-jeaned, made-up variety (we're talking late Seventies) was famous for bearing numerous children and giving them names like Moon, Jesse James and Zowie. Indeed, because of their pioneering penchant for girlie fashion and make-up, their masculinity in large part depended on proving their potent virility. It's probably the main reason Ozzy Osbourne summoned up the courage to have sex with the fearsome Sharon - his image and therefore career depended on it!

Now, thanks to that explosive moment of passion between MTV's answer to the Von Trapps, your husband is styling himself as a less hirsute product of that Shazza/Oz union. I agree it's not a good look, but apart from the challenge of actually having to have sex with him, making a baby is just part of the package for an aspirant rocker. And if he starts bringing up the unreliable nature of the musician's lifestyle, remind him that pedestrian considerations of that nature hardly befit a crazy, inspired artist. He should be throwing caution to the wind with little or no care for the resulting offspring apart from a commitment to buy them a drum kit for their fifth birthday. In short, you both need to stop considering fatherhood an obstacle to his pursuit of rock immortality. There's also the advantage that having a child might drag his fashion sense kicking and screaming into the noughties. Your husband's look sounds as dated as his titles are derivative. You don't need to be an agony aunt to spot a midlife crisis.

I suggest you try a bit of aversion therapy. Warn your close friends that they're in for a shock and then ditch self-esteem and your fashion sense for a few weeks. You need to horrify him back to reality. I suggest you start by appearing to love your husband's songs. Start humming them around the house, while dressed in spandex and spaghetti-strapped vests. You'll need a large tub of hair-gel, quadruple the make-up you normally wear, black kohl pencil, obviously, and some very uncomfortable stilettos.

I'm sure your husband is no fool, so I suggest you effect the transformation over a couple of weeks. If he's like every other man, he won't respond to the subtle daily changes until suddenly, Bam! - there you are looking like a cross between Siouxsie Sioux, Cindy Lauper and Cher in the Nineties! Your new look will force him to confront a mirror image of his own adopted style. Daily exposure to a devoted fan who can't get enough of his music will, I guarantee you, drive him to reconsider his aspirations.

Remember, everything he's up to right now is an attempt to draw attention to himself with his tragically immature and outdated mode of rebellion. The minute you start inhabiting similar territory, the only course of action for him will be to express horror at your transformation and snap out of this silliness. You can't rebel against a partner who's swallowed your style bible from cover to cover. As you praise his music, parade around in the compulsory leopard-print G-string and perhaps the ripped fishnets and suspenders. Your husband will all too predictably want to do dirty things to you. If you're a clever girl, you might manage to make a baby between those two points in time!

· If you, too, have a dilemma, email mariella.frostrup@observer.co.uk

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