The Marriage Act Quotes
"I’ve recorded so many of these Vlogs over the years, but this is the first one where I’m at a loss as to know where to start."
"I’m drained. I don’t have the strength to put myself through this any more."
"I wanted to make a little film that a few people might watch where I could speak about the stuff that mattered to me as a twenty-something woman."
"God, life was fun and easy back then, wasn’t it?"
"I should have known it couldn’t last. Nothing good ever does."
"It’s more of a sport to try and shut down a woman with a voice than it is with a man who says the same thing."
"I’ve got pills to help me think, pills to stop me overthinking, pills to give me an appetite and pills that stop me feeling anything but empty."
"I can’t remember the last time I felt optimistic about anything."
"I wish I could go back to the Jem Jones I was before I started Vlogging."
"Congratulations to anyone watching who has helped to make my life a living hell – you win. I give up, I surrender."
"I don’t even get why you’re making videos. Nobody watches your Vlogs."
"I don’t have room in my life or my business for anything that drains it."
"I’m worried about you, Rox. It’s not normal to spend this much time online."
"I’d support you one hundred per cent if I thought it was good for you or our family."
"Positivity breeds positivity and vice versa."
"I need you to promise me that when it gets worse, you’ll only think of our good times together."
"Imagine being so desperately unhappy, that’s the only way you can stop the pain."
"I need to know that you’ll be all right without me."
"Perhaps Audite’s AI might need a little retraining."
"I have enough memories up here for the both of us to last us a lifetime."
"You might have a career, a house and a family who love you, but what’s the point when there’s no one to share it with?"
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."
"I think there’s too much pressure on queer couples to marry. It shouldn’t be a goal we’re all expected to aim for."
"Couples don’t...jump down each other’s throats now saying cruel stuff; they think about what they’re going to say if they disagree."
"The best part of being gay is that we shouldn’t have to be 'normal'. We should be making our own rules and living our own lives."
"Being friends with a divorcee was akin to having a contagious disease."
"I don’t care about civil liberties. You might think a right to life is less important than freedom of speech, but I don’t."
"What’s the point of living if you can’t feel alive?"
"There’s a lot of things I have to do for myself these days."
"As difficult as this is to hear, in the eyes of the Act, she is no longer your wife. I’m afraid she no longer counts."
"Work was his priority and nothing – not even his lust for Jada – could get in the way."
"In three years’ time, and when early retirement welcomed him, that’s when they could all finally be a proper family."
"‘Stranger things have happened.’ But he knew better. Jem was most definitely dead; he had seen to that personally."
"It used to be reality TV stars people listened to. Now it’s anyone with a camera and halo lighting."
"Thank God our son will never know what it’s like to have to justify and quantify why he should be treated with equality."
"I’m really sorry but I can’t tonight," Anthony replied. "I need to get a head start on tomorrow."
"‘I want to ensure our marriage stays on track without the need of outside interference,’ she began."
"Without looking her in the eye, Anthony took his wine glass and returned to the office, locking the doors behind him."
"Because the sensitive nature of his career ensured their conversations were exempt from being monitored or recorded by their Audite."
"‘By trading myself in for a more complicit model,’ she muttered."
"You’ve never been there, you #virtualfuckingtourist!"
"She wouldn’t be able to get away with throwaway boastaposts like this now that she was on her way to becoming a public figure."
"‘Is this really necessary?’ Arthur asked, exasperated."
"‘No thank you,’ Arthur declined politely but firmly."
"‘Here’s to nothing,’ Toni chuckled. ‘Here’s to doing just enough to get by.’"
"They’re trying to distract from facing up to their own failures by projecting them upon you."
"He cursed a little and described therapy as pointless and biased."
"He felt normal. After spending so long between clients as a transient soul living out of his car, he could be happy here, long-term."
"The more you do for one another, the more the other person feels appreciated."
"Sometimes you need to take a step back and stop fighting battles that aren’t worth your effort."
"Life is too short. Sometimes you just need to let go."
"You can’t pay attention to what matters most if you’re always in a hurry."
"I had an epiphany. I finally understood I was self-sabotaging my life so I pulled myself together and started again."
"Compliments are an important positive affirmation in a relationship."
"The ease of his lies astonished her. But then he’d been practising for months."
"You should try magnesium. One teaspoon in a pot of tea every evening... my mother swore by it, God rest her soul."
"You know what a plan looks like because you seem to make a lot of them. You’re rarely at home these days, are you?"
"Sometimes we find our better selves in the company of others."
"I’ll be humiliating you in front of our children, your friends, and our neighbours."
"They can add it to their other criticisms on my feedback form."
"Wouldn’t the world be a better place if he didn’t exist?"
"She once admitted that it was only as an adult that she understood those foster parents weren’t rejecting her."
"Even if the whole world told her she was loved, I still don’t think she’d believe it."
"I don’t need a lecture. For years it’s been a sure thing."
"It’s as if they’ve targeted me and are deliberately trying to destroy me."
"Your ability to be so self-serving would make you a very useful Member of Parliament."
"We’ll both screw over anyone who gets in our way to get what we want."
"The idea of being under the care of a Relationship Responder, someone who can make decisions that will shape our future, scares me."
"A marriage, if that’s what you can call this, doesn’t work like that."
"I love you more than you will ever know and I have treated you badly."
"I have a lot of work to do on this new project so I won’t have much time for you and Matthew anyway."
"I will always love you but sometimes we have to accept that isn’t enough to hold a relationship together."
"Have you heard of the kurinji plant? They’re found in the blue mountains in South India; beautiful little plants that only blossom once every twelve years."
"A request for help is a way of reminding you how capable and worthy you are of completing that task."
"So much of our lives are spent trying to solve problems, that we forget marriage is a relationship and not one handicap after another."
"I don’t really miss it. It was fun while it lasted. Not as much as my family does."
"The swap from Influencer to housewife made her weep if she thought too much about it."
"Since Adrian had left and they were Unlevelled, Owen had stuck to her like a limpet on the hull of the Titanic."
"Roxi had naively assumed that, with no online distractions, she could become the wife and mother everyone in that house wanted her to be."
"Millions of single people would kill for a husband and children like hers."
"It was like inviting a recently sober alcoholic on a pub crawl."
"Antoinette Cooper had been right when she’d suggested to Owen that Roxi’s need for social media was an addiction."
"If only her life was this uncomplicated, she thought."
"Her first wedding had been in a Las Vegas drive-through. This second union would be perfect, despite her disapproving family’s refusal to join them."
"He had lived with Jem for so long that he felt he owed it to her to be the one to kill her."
"We do not need money to be happy. We managed it before the Act was introduced and we can do it once it is repealed."