Idioms about Relationships (and some more vocabulary) printed in bold are explained below the article. Listen to the mp3 first without reading the text if you want to practise your listening skills.
For celebrities these days, it seems that falling in love with another celebrity (not a ‘normal’ person) is mandatory in their ‘profession’. No sooner has a film star actor worked with a new actress, then he takes the plunge, gets down on one knee and asks her to marry him (Daniel Craig & Rachel Weisz).
Of course marriage is meant to be a solemn vow that you only take with your true love; someone that you can be with through thick and thin and til death do us part etc. Maybe that’s a bit outdated and possibly too much with the pressures of modern day life, but at least couples should be able to get through a few ups and downs without fighting like cats and dogs or being at each other’s throats, shouldn’t they?
Modern divorce statistics across the globe would probably be shocking for people of past generations. Why did more marriages last in the past? Perhaps it was because divorce wasn’t such an easy thing to do; women depended financially on their husbands; was there a social stigma of failure attached to divorce? Or were people just prepared to try a bit harder to make their marriage work when they didn’t see eye to eye on something and could talk things out to clear the air?
Heidi Klum and Seal are currently going through an amicable split. But this has been immediately followed-up with rumours of a possible reconciliation. Is that the difference these days? Would people in the past have worked things out behind closed doors, whereas now everything has to be done out in the open (Demi Moore & Ashton Kutcher)?
Surely the example from some celebrities of falling head over heels in love, shortly after tying the knot and a few days later separating because of irreconcilible differences doesn’t help the whole situation (Kim Kardashian/Sinead O’Connor). If you really hate each other’s guts because of an argument about something trivial, then perhaps it’s too easy and socially acceptable these days to go your separate ways, rather than to work through your differences.
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Relationship Idioms (and some more vocabulary)
- to fall in love
- to start to love someone/to start to have a romantic feeling about someone
- to take the plunge
- to take a chance and ask someone to marry you
- to get down on one knee
- the act of asking someone to marry you
- through thick and thin
- in good times and bad times
- til death do us part
- one of the vows/promises that couples make in a wedding meaning that ‘we will be together forever’
- ups and downs
- in good times and bad times
- to fight like cats and dogs
- constantly fighting
- being at each other’s throats
- fighting very strongly…almost ‘killing’ the other person
- to not see eye to eye
- to disagee
- clear the air
- to solve a problem by speaking about it
- amicable split
- a friendly separation
- reconciliation
- to come back together again after a separation
- to work things out
- to solve a problem by talking about it together
- falling head over heels in love
- to fall in love very quickly and very strongly
- to tie the knot
- to get married
- irreconcilible differences
- problems that cannot be solved because you hate each other
- to hate each other’s guts
- to very strongly hate another person
- to go your separate ways
- to separate permanently
- to work through your differences
- to solve your problems
