I want somebody in my week, not somebody in my Friday

Every arrangement I have run has been about the running of a house rather than about anything that happens in a bedroom. That is not a euphemism and it is not modesty. It is the actual content, and men are routinely surprised by it in the third week.

What it means in practice: he has duties, they are written down, and they are things that genuinely need doing. The shopping. The parts of the admin I loathe. The car. The garden in summer. He reports when they are done and I check, sometimes properly and sometimes not, and both of us know which. Failure has consequences that are also dull, and the dullness is the point.

Forty three, north of the river, sixteen years leading, three arrangements, the shortest of them four years. What I want now is the same again with somebody who lives near enough for this to be woven into an ordinary week rather than driven to on a Friday. Twice a week, ideally, plus whatever happens in writing.

The men who do badly at this are the ones for whom the duties are a prelude. You can tell within a month, because the shopping starts arriving late and the messages start arriving early. The men who do well find the duties are the thing, and stop thinking of them as service at some point in the second year, which is when it becomes what I actually want.

Nothing in it is for sale and nothing is bought. It is a household.