‘I try not to get him started on politics!’: power couples on rows, rules and who really does the housework

‘My first impression? Deeply uncool’

Bruce Robinson – best known as the writer and director of Withnail and I – met artist Sophie Windham at an Italian restaurant in London in 1982. He proposed three days later. They have been married for 42 years and still live and work side by side in the Welsh borders. They have two grown up children, Lily and Willoughby .

Sophie

Bruce has been writing obsessively since I met him – and anybody who wasn’t creative themselves would have found that hard to put up with. We cut short our honeymoon after only three days because he had a script deadline, and today he still works until 10pm many nights. Because I’m a painter I can relate to that. He’s not pissed off if I vanish into my studio for the day.

When our children were little, I was