Clergyman's wife says that it's s3x, not love that keeps their marriage alive

As the wife of a clergyman, one would have expected her to say that God is the reason why their marriage is working just fine or maybe that they even got married in the first place for company or something. But Annie Atkins says s3x was the reason she married her husband Shaun.

Here's what she told DailyMail UK:
'The other day, my husband Shaun and I went to a friend's drinks party. As the wine flowed, we got talking to a group of 50-something couples and the polite chatter turned to how we had all met our partners. And why did you marry each other?' we were asked in turn. Spontaneously and without conferring Shaun and I both simultaneously said 'Sex,' and then laughed.

The couple who had asked us, both marriage counsellors, looked deeply shocked: 'We've never heard anyone say that before.' Apparently, most couples say utterly drippy things such as: 'We wanted to support each other.'

Perhaps our reply was particularly shocking because Shaun is a clergyman. But the truth is that we vowed our lives to each other so we could make love to each other - for life. While sex once seemed easy, it can tail off in later life thanks to the menopause, fears over our ageing bodies and the sad truth that familiarity can breed contempt

People might be surprised to hear me - a regular on Radio 4's Thought For The Day and mother of five children - talk so openly about the crucial importance of love-making.But it's the bond that has kept us together, the thread running through our shared lives, particularly when times have been difficult.

After being fortunate enough to find my perfect lover in my early 20s, I can't imagine ever wanting to be celibate.Shaun and I met in our second year at Oxford University, both aged 20. One morning a few months later, when we still barely knew each other, I took a break from an essay to visit him for coffee.He utterly stunned me by telling me he was 'madly in love' with me.That day I wrote to my parents: 'Just before lunchtime, I fell in love.'

Unlike Shaun - who, as a committed Christian, had kept himself scrupulously pure, not even kissing a girl - I'd had boyfriends through my teens, but had never wanted to have sex with any of them. With Shaun, I felt very differently. He woke something in me that I'd never felt before. With his quiet, steely reserve and flashes of Irish poetry and passion, he was, quite simply, the sexiest man I'd ever met.We wanted each other so much that he proposed to me later that year and we agreed to marry as soon as we reasonably could - straight after our Finals, aged 22.Waiting for our wedding night to make love was far more difficult than getting a degree.

So, naturally, we told the shocked couple at the drinks party that we married for s3x.'