According to Inside Soap which I've copied and pasted :

"Poor Bernice. She’s excited as she and Gabby move into Home Farm, ahead of her marriage to Lawrence. However, she’s unimpressed when she learns that Lawrence intends them to have separate rooms! Her day goes even further downhill when Robert wants a word. What’s he plotting now?"

Separate rooms?! Why on earth is he marrying her? OK so he might not want people to know he's gay and he's of a generation of people who marry the opposite sex to hide the fact they're gay but really I am still surprised he's marrying Bernice in 2015. He clearly doesn't fancy her the way she fancies him. When he moved in for a cuddle she expected a kiss and she seemed to be turned on by him and he just gave her a platonic cuddle. Now he's planning on separate rooms! I wonder if they'll actually get married? Will Bernice agree to living in a sexless marriage? Maybe Lawrence decides to come out after all? I don't know as I haven't read all the spoilers so other than the fact they're having separate rooms I'm kind of guessing.

Lawrence is very old school. Guess he wishes to respect Bernice.

I bet Lawrence starts smashing Robert behind Bernice's back

I think something happened between them years ago. I'm not sure how far it went but Robert was taunting him and said something about his being gay and something from the past where Robert knew Lawrence was gay. Lawrence hasn't exactly kept it a secret to be honest so why marry a woman? OK he hasn't told everyone but a small number of people know. I can see Bernice being very disappointed and I think she'll end it.

I could see that too, maybe Robert and Lawrence had been carrying on the entire time and he's only mad at Robert because he's been cheating on him with Aaron.

Also I feel bad for Bernice, she's an attractive woman and should be able to get a decent straight guy that wants her in every way, yet she seems to fail every time when trying to find love.

I bet he'd love to.

Seriously, this relationship with Bernice is doing nobody any good. But at least ED isn't shying away from showing what a compromised mess it is.

This is probably one of the more interesting storylines in Emmerdale at the moment.

Although I wish Bernice would be given a man who will truly love her

It is, I agree. It's a tricky one, and they're handling it quite well at the moment.

Poor Bernice. But then poor Lawrence in a way, he doesn't know what he wants.

Bernice will probably end up with Andy Thugden.

I'm really not sure that it is a case of Lawrence marrying Bernice as a 'beard'. I think he probably genuinely wants the companionship aspects of marriage. Sex just possibly isn't that necessary part of it for him - lots of people do actually have happy marriages without sex being. Part of it, especially as they get older. I'm not saying that everybody that reacjes their 60s or 70s just stops but many do. It's possible that he and his wife didn't have that active a sex life so he considers it 'normal' and she may have been happy like that so he assumes Berniece will be too. However, i doubt she will be.

Re something having happened between him and Robert. What robery actually said was that when he first interviewed for his job, he could tell that Lawrence fancied him so he flirted and led him on somewhat without ever explicitly talking about it but nothing had happened and then he stopped when he met Chrissie and got with her and that was the reason that Lawrence didn't like him - because he knew his attraction had been used against him and Robert had never been interested.

That was robert's version but Lawrence didn't deny it so I think we can assume it is the truth.

Naw, Andy will get with Debbie after she finds out about Ross' plan to kill Pete.

I'd quite happily marry Lawrence, have separate bedrooms and still have all his cash


Over my dead body

I don't think Debbie fancies Andy. When they needed a "saviour sibling" she found it difficult the first time they tried and he wanted to kiss her.

I don't blame her for once. His slobbery lips would put me right off

Gabby's thinking like that. She wants a pony and said she doesn't need to go to school now she's going to be rich! To be honest it would be a hassle free way to live if you are a gold digger who is just after money. Unfortunately Bernice does actually fancy Lawrence.

I'm sure Lawrence really likes her. But have they even talked about it? He's proposed, but has he said he doesn't want sex, does she even know? It sort of needs to come up (not like that, obviously ) before they get to the altar. The fact is Bernice is a lot younger, and likes sex. A companionate marriage for the sake of security and affection is a lot to ask at her age.


Too right. I'd happily just spend every night drinking wine with him and bitching about Robert, it would be amazing.

He bares his gritted teeth when he gets emotional too. It makes him look quite scary. I don't fancy him either. Ross Barton on the other hand can kiss me any time he wants.

or ditch both when/if she finds out about there pact to kill Pete/Robert.

Why? Debbie and Andy have great chemistry. I know you are Debbie's #1 fan but you can't possibly like her with Ross. That pairing has done nothing for her character


That was then, then can have them sloooowly developing feelings for each other again.

I forgot about that, so you could be right. They'll probably have her get with Nikhil, that'd be quite the story for him falling for the woman who played a role in his wife's death.

Right from the start I've never quite understood why the writers chose to make Chrissie's father and Edna's husband's ex-lover one and the same person.
It just seems to overcomplicate Lawrence's background story.
I'm not saying that his behaviour is completely unrealistic, but I just don't see the need for him to be that person.

He hardly interacts with Edna anyway - and why would he?
At least after Robert's affair came out I would have thought we might get a scene between Lawrence and Aaron alluding to the fact that he too was once in a similar situation.
But nothing ever came of it.

I think Lawrence is being unrealistic and unreasonable. I like him, he' s a lovely guy but he must realise that there' s at least a chance that Bernice wants a sexual relationship. I think that his late wife has been content with a sexless marriage, which is fine but only if both parties are happy with that. It strikes me that it' s very important to Bernice to be desired. I think Bernice had had a few bad experiences, and Lawrence appeals to her because he IS kind, but is that enough for her?

That's interesting. I didn't have a problem with the way Lawrence was introduced at all, I found it fascinating. They just didn't follow it up as well as they might have done. But I have a theory that when Lawrence's character and backstory was developed, they hadn't yet decided that Robert would also be bisexual. I think they decided to recast Robert first, then Danny asked to come back as Aaron, so BANG, Robert sleeps with men, give Aaron something to do. It's always felt like an add-on to me.

Anyway, that's my theory. It explains why Lawrence's story, and his backstory with Robert, kind of got shoved aside awkwardly in favour of Robert shagging Aaron.

I did expect Lawrence to have more of a conversation with Robert after it all came out. But they sort of flunked it.

He needs paper bag over his head.

And that's all.