From experience, I'm fairly sure – and I know I won't win prizes for saying this – men never grow up. We get older, of course, but inside our little heads (grey, in my case) not a great deal changes really. When we're in our early 20s we do whatever the hell we want, and of course women are an integral part of 'whatever the hell we want.'

Then we settle into long-term partnerships, perhaps co-habiting, and we have to tone things down. We stop playing football every Saturday morning, we keep Friday nights free, we even cook from time to time, and we pay considerably more attention – proportionally – to personal hygiene.

And then we get married and have kids, and we knuckle down to being the best fathers and husbands we can, whilst still, of course, being blokes. We continue to be selfish as all hell and have lists as long as our arms of things we'd like to do if only we could; and that leads to two potentially damaging scenarios.

How things go wrong: 1

The first is that we stop doing things. Out of the window goes golf. Mates get jettisoned. The pub is a distant memory. The Champions League is replaced with Emmerdale on the big telly. And we mope. Utterly miserable. Wallowing in pools of self-pity.

How things go wrong: 2

The second scenario is that we just do what we want, without much consideration for the rest of the family, and we feel bloody awful about it. Guilt weighs us down until we can barely lift one foot and place it in front of the other. We carry hangdog, downcast expressions. We spend vast tracts of time, desolate, in the dog-house.

Both of these scenarios are recipes for disaster, because if a bloke is miserable, he will be seriously bad company, not only for his wife but for his children too, which is just not sustainable. And that's where BlokeMiles comes in. It's something I discovered in my own marriage, and ended up writing a novel about it.

How to avoid disaster

Basically, the best a relationship can be is equal, as opposed to lop-sided. Yes, there's stuff I want to do – and why shouldn't I do it? But equally, there's stuff she wants to do too, though this isn't as simple as it sounds, because mothers have a martyrdom complex and they have often lost the knack of thinking selfishly. But nowadays, my wife takes as many yoga weekends (with me earning BlokeMiles) as I take golf breaks (when I spend them) – we effectively trade in 'me time', which means we get to spend time being ourselves - separate from our normal roles as husbands, wives and parents. It is jolly cleansing, I can tell you.

From a purely male perspective, I am happy because I get a healthy dose of 'bloke stuff'. And the beauty of BlokeMiles is I am entirely free of guilt, which means I'm comparatively good company for my family. And that, in turn, makes it sustainable. Simple really.

Find out more

'BlokeMiles' by Mathew Ravden is published by Orion. For further information go to www.blokemiles.co.uk

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