I'M trying hard to be a Surrendered Wife. Like many other women who have heard all about this lifestyle - renowned for instilling harmony into your marriage - I thought I would give it a go.

The idea - hit upon by American Laura Doyle - involves giving in to your husband, letting him have his own way and handing over the household responsibilities that you presently deal with such as (in my case) finance and planning.

Even if you think his ideas are awful, you must smile and accept them - that way you will keep your man happy. If he wants to spend the afternoon at the pub, then let him. If he appears for a night out in a dreadful sweatshirt, just grin and bear it. If it's not harming you, then let him do as he likes to keep him sweet.

Following this sort of path, Ms Doyle claims in a book on the subject, will improve your rocky relationship no end - you will talk to each other again, laugh together again and your sex life will be fab.

Fair enough. Although I'm quite strong-willed, if it means turning my hubby from the usual bear with a sore head to a loveable, happy creature, I don't mind him taking control (for a week or two).

But it's not that easy. At least not in my house and I suspect many others too, because - and no-one seems to have addressed this problem - you can't have become a Surrendered Wife if you're married to a Surrendered Husband.

I've got a man who is so eager to please, so irritatingly keen to fall into line and make others happy, that it would take decades to knock him into the sort of bloke who decides things for himself.

His most well-used expression is: "You decide." He will do whatever I want, whether it's planting a tree in the garden: "I think a redwood will upset the neighbours, but if you like it..." choosing a pair of trousers: "These are okay. What do you think of them? Oh well, pass me another pair," or booking a holiday: "Where do you want to go this year?"

If he has his own needs, he certainly doesn't fight for them. There's the odd glimmer of non-compliance, when he sheepishly whispers things like: "I don't really feel like tuna, I'll have a cheese sandwich if that's all right with you."

Of course, he doesn't live to please me. He leaves clothing on the floor and DIY tools all over the house. And I yell at him. Here at least, I could practise being a Surrendered Wife - by biting my lip and thinking of all this good points.

Yet that won't do much to spice up our relationship - chances are he won't even register that I've said nothing.

I could hand over the bills, the household accounts and any other financial tasks that presently fall to me. But he'd only forget to pay them and we'd end up with bailiffs coming for the telly. "That's your job - you like that sort of thing," he would say, and heave a sigh of relief as he handed them back to me.

It sounds like I rule the roost - and I do, but I don't want to, I want to wave the white flag and join the Surrendered Wives for a while. Trouble is you can't surrender to someone who makes Roy from Coronation Street look assertive.

There is one silver lining, however. My husband could write a book - The Surrendered Husband. I'll ask him - he's bound to do it then.