Ed Gamble is already an award-winning comedian, chart-topping podcast and radio host and author, but he might have just added a surprising new accolade to this collection: the saviour of marriage.
Fellow standup Rhys James recently appeared on Off Menu, the podcast Gamble presents with James Acaster, where guests detail their dream meal. For his starter, Rhys James said he wanted buffalo wings and nachos from a former culinary hotspot called Billy’s in the Hertfordshire town of Harpenden, where his dad used to take him during the year he and James’s mum were separated. That James’s parents had split up for only 12 months obviously provoked further questions and comment, during which Gamble had his moment of genius.
“So they had a rumspringa,” he announced.
Rumspringa is a period in Amish teenagers’ lives, usually around the age of 16, where they’re allowed to leave their communities and “encouraged to explore otherwise forbidden or strictly regulated behaviours”, before choosing whether to return and commit to the church. With the divorce rate currently at around 42% in the UK, is it time we introduced the concept of the Long-Term Relationship Rumspringa?
To be clear, this is not an open marriage. It’s a pre-agreed length of time when a couple live apart and are “encouraged to explore otherwise forbidden or strictly regulated behaviours” before choosing whether to return and commit to the relationship anew. A grass-is-greener test, if you like, because you just never know, do you? For example, this week a post from Fesshole, the social media account where people anonymously confess their darkest secrets, read: “I fantasise about my wife of 25 years dying. Time to myself. Drink what I want. Live the life. Do what I want. She went away for a week with her girlfriends. I was so bored and lonely it was unreal. I hope I die first.”
In an ideal world, post-Rumspringa, the two parties will come home both hoping they die first. They will return with renewed enthusiasm and appreciation for their spouse, and the institution of marriage/endurance cohabitation itself. Of course, there’s a risk it could backfire because the lawn was indeed much more verdant on the other side, but it’s better – all round – to know, isn’t it? This isn’t a dress rehearsal, after all.
The first rule of Relationship Rumspringa must be that you have to earn it. Can’t work out if you should propose or not and believe this will help you decide? Boohoo, no way. Newlyweds, wait your turn. Done a ten-stretch and think you’re ready? In your dreams. This is for those who have served their time, put in the hours, toiled tirelessly at love’s coalface. The average life sentence in the UK is 15 to 20 years, and that should be the case here too. Any fewer miles on the clock than that and you’re not coming in. (Well, getting out, technically.)
Fully indulging in the Rumspringa – as in, biblically – or not is an individual decision to wrestle with for those taking part. Some will see it as cheating if there’s no cheating, some will never be able to get past it if there is, though being granted permission to sleep around may well be a wake-up call – we’re talking about people who have been in comfortable relationships for two decades here, and are less likely to be in peak physical condition, with rusty, dusty seduction techniques. Good luck on the apps!
When the Rumspringa has sprung, and it’s time to reunite, there should perhaps be a ritual to follow. Each person writes down whether they want to stay married or break up for good, and they reveal their verdicts simultaneously, like on the old gameshow Mr and Mrs (but with an added question mark at the end of the title). Otherwise you run the risk, if you want to make the split permanent after a humdinga of a Rumspringa, that the other talks first and wants to stay together, and you feel so bad you remain married out of politeness. Just after experiencing a torturous glimpse of the new life you could have won.
If the time apart does reignite that old spark, and you fall back into each other’s arms gratefully, you should then be permitted to renew your vows. No one else should be allowed, for the record, because vows do not expire. Actually, maybe they should, though? Ed Gamble’s presumably chewing this over as we speak.
