Appily Ever After

It’s been hyped as the latest thing in couples therapy – an app that claims to improve your relationship in 10 minutes a day. Emma Markezic puts it – and her fiancé – to the test

- Emma Leonard

The year was 2016. Some smartypants had just coined the word Brexit, every-one was buzzing about Stranger Things and America was about to vote in a reality-TV star as president. It was also the year my life changed forever. Not in a hyperbolic way – in almost every way imaginable.

I’d been “between relationships” for more than 10 years – or almost half of Timothée Chalamet’s entire lifetime, to put that in perspective – when I met a man I’ll henceforth refer to as Kieran. Mostly because that’s his name. We’ve now been together four years, lived together for three, and engaged for two. But I’m not one to let a relationship rest on its laurels; I know they take elbow grease. And you’d be a right boob to think otherwise.

Actually, speaking of right boobs, I was about to have mine removed from my body just as Kieran and I met. I’d already had the left one expunged earlier that year thanks to a cancerous lump and now her twin was following suit, as twins tend to do. I was not kidding about it being a transformative year. I mention all this because it’s not like our relationship hasn’t been thrown a few curveballs. We have some trauma skillz. This is a man who’d take me on a romantic sixth date and then hold my hand before a chemo session the next morning. He’s not one to shy away from a challenge.