I thought ‘Secret Daddy’ was bad enough. Now I’ve discovered something worse

The mystery of “Secret Daddy” has been resolved, I think. For those who don’t read this column religiously, my youngest son told me recently that he has a secret daddy and then wouldn’t tell me who it was. I wasn’t worried about it, because I trust my wife. Then I wrote about it and people started tweeting me to say that they found it concerning, and they hoped I was worrying over nothing. I have nobody to blame but myself. I hadn’t discussed it with my wife before I wrote about it, but even then she never brought it up – and I realised that here was yet another person in my life who doesn’t read my column.

So I told her, and she found it hilarious, before pondering who this secret daddy might be. “He might want a secret daddy because you’re away so much,” she said. This, I felt, was an incredible move. Until then, I had been very much on the front foot during this exchange, but in the space of one comment I became the guilty party. It was so effective, you might almost suspect it had been planned.

“A less secure husband might worry that you’re in a relationship with someone,” I countered. Nice work, Romesh. We were sparring lightly and I needed to hit back.

Then my wife delivered an incredible return: “Where would I find the time to do that?”

Jesus. Not, “Why would I want to do that?”, not “I love you and would never want to be with anyone else”, but confirmation that the only reason she hasn’t got a boyfriend is logistics. God bless the time constraints of modern life.

I had recently broken my alcohol abstinence to enjoy some wine with my wife, which meant that we were now pissed very early in the evening. Our discussion shifted to the early starts I had been having for the sitcom I’m filming. I am up before 5am and quietly get ready to leave, then return fairly late. (I do not wish you to think I am suggesting my life is hard, because I am just poncing about acting as a version of myself. They are early starts, nevertheless.)

I had been getting up at dawn under the impression that I was accruing “martyr points” for use later down the line. “Martyr points” are the rewards that you get in a relationship for doing hard stuff that you can trade in for sympathy or getting to choose a takeaway, or what film you watch. The conversion rate varies between couples. After filming for seven weeks I was really looking forward to cashing in my points.

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It was during our drunken conversation that my wife dropped this bomb: “Well, we have both been having to get up early because I always wake up when you’re getting ready.” Is that right? I had assumed for my 40 years of life that waking up meant opening your eyes and engaging with the world around you, but it turns out that what it actually means is “lying motionless, almost exactly as if you were still asleep”.

I honestly couldn’t believe it. I had been spending my journeys into work planning our evenings watching Avengers together and considering what Chinese dishes we were going to order. And now I’d had all my martyr points ripped away from me. This is so much worse than Secret Daddy.