I’ve been thinking quite a lot about Gwyneth Paltrow recently. Well, more accurately about that rather ridiculous phrase she coined when announcing her intended divorce from husband Chris Martin: conscious uncoupling.

Not that I am considering divorce, you understand; and I am reasonably confident that my wife isn’t considering it either, although you never know. It’s never a good idea to be complacent about these things, and perhaps that’s the point.

I have often said that if I hadn’t been born English, and could have made a choice, I would have chosen to be Scottish. I fell for the country, the people, the history and the culture the first time I went. But the reality is that my understanding of what it means to be Scottish is inevitably warped by virtue of my not being such. So what am I? The truth is that on the occasions I have ever been asked that (only when I am overseas) my reply has always been: British. I have to think about it to say “English”, but “British” comes naturally and without thought. Why is that?

Am I unusual? Do my English peers regard themselves the same way? I think they may, and that the growing interest in English nationalism has been born not of instinct, but from the clamor of nationalism in other parts of the United Kingdom. But the mistake for the English has been to assume that the other parts of our union have seen themselves in the same way. Clearly they have not.

So what has this got to do with Mr & Mrs Martin? I don’t know whether they both wanted to split, and I don’t much care. But what that phrase tells us is that both of them decided that it was for the best if they went their separate ways, maintaining a cordial relationship for the sake of the children (interested parties affected by the split but with no say in the matter). The ‘uncoupling’ was a conscious decision on the part of both parties. The impending Scottish referendum is qualitatively different. If the Scots and those residing in Scotland who also have a say, chose to vote yes, it will for them be a case of conscious uncoupling. But the rest of us in the UK are in this marriage too, and any such uncoupling will be far from conscious.

I am starting to feel like the husband who sits at home keeping an eye on the kids thinking everything is rosy, only to have my wife come home to say she wants a divorce. “Why?” I ask plaintively. “I thought we were happy together?” “You took me for granted and I want something else from life,” is the reply that comes seemingly out of nowhere.

The standard response from the husbands in this kind of drama is to say, “Give me another chance, I can change.” I think we can all see that if the Scots do give the union another chance then we will have to change, and change profoundly. But making such pleas is desperate, pathetic and too late. So what should we (predominantly the English, because I think the Welsh and Irish would be quick – and right – to distance themselves from any culpability in this) do to persuade them to vote “no” on September 18?

In the end I come back to how I have always seen myself: British. The reason I do not see myself as being English is because somewhere in my ancestry I have absorbed a part of what it means to be Scottish too. I am proud of what the Scots and Scotland have achieved over the last three hundred years because I see it as our achievement too, and I hope that the Scots have taken a similar reflected pride in the accomplishments of the Welsh, the Irish and the English. We are, all of us, better for the things we bring out in each other, and it seems to me that gaining independence would give a short-lived sense of nationalist pride for those north of the border, and there may even be some practical benefits, but how long would they last?

So it is an emotional plea then. To my many friends in God’s country, I love you, and it don’t want you to leave. You make me what I am, and deep down I think you feel the same way.

Don’t go: you complete me.