Marriage Diaries is a column by Telegraph Family in which people share snapshots of their relationships and their dilemmas. It is published every Wednesday

The other day, I was at a colleague’s dinner party with my husband. The pudding had been devoured, we were on the dessert wines and there was a pleasant, post-meal lull in the air.

Then someone gave my husband a compliment about looking younger than his years. This person then said: ‘Tell us your secret – have you got a portrait in the attic?’ Everyone laughed. My husband stopped and looked puzzled. ‘A portrait in the attic?’ he asked. ‘No idea what you’re on about, mate. But we do have a load of camping stuff up there.’

Some giggled, thinking he was just being ironic. But others noted the genuine lack of understanding on my husband’s face and looked down at their laps, feeling awkward.

I was glad the dinner was candlelit or they’d have seen me blushing furiously and squirming in my seat, wishing we could just leave or vanish.

My husband didn’t get the reference to Oscar Wilde’s acclaimed novel of a man’s devilish pact to stay eternally young, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Everyone else did. But he didn’t. And when we went home and tried to hug me I pulled away, still mortified at his lack of education and savoir faire.