Shortly before her husband retired, one of my neighbours set out some ground rules. “You keep out of my life, and I’ll keep out of yours and we’ll be fine,” she told him.

“That’s how we manage to get along,” she said, after I’d been whinging to her about the stress of spending a week in the house with my husband.

Never since having children have we both had the same week off outside school holidays. Last week we did – and I wouldn’t describe it as paradise.

I work part-time and on my days off I have a sort-of routine and I more or less stick to it. I take my youngest daughter to school, do the shopping, make the beds, do the washing, tidy up, pay bills, and occasionally meet my friends for an hour before the school run.

I make good use of my days off and, contrary to what my husband imagines, I don’t sit around drinking coffee and watching daytime television. I’m also careful how much electricity and gas I use – I never watch TV, only have the radio on for the 1pm news and The Archers, and do all the day’s washing-up at tea-time.

My husband, I discovered, is the polar opposite. “Why is the TV on, what are you watching?” I asked him, as I arrived home from the supermarket. I was speechless when he answered: “Jeremy Kyle.” He used more hot water in one day than I use in a year, washing individual plates under the hot tap, and he seemed to spend a huge amount of time hovering around with no real purpose.

I’m being a bit unfair -– on the two days when the sun shone, my husband knuckled down and repaired and painted our rotten windows – but, to be blunt, the rest of the time he got on my nerves.

This reaction is common in relationships where couples rarely spend time together.

I remember my parents’ neighbour telling how since retirement his wife had commandeered the computer, which he previously spent many hours on. And I fully understood the sentiments of one of my closest friends, who rants and raves about her partner’s presence in the house on her days off work.

Couples who spend little time together have many adjustments to make before they can co-exist comfortably, 24-hours a day.

Women who have worked part-time since having children often don’t know how to react when their husband joins them in retirement. You see such men being dragged round shops, the spirit knocked out of them.