People with matching tattoos share how it turned out for them

Cementing their rekindled romance in ink, JLo and Ben Affleck spent their Valentine’s Day getting matching tattoos.

After tying the knot in August last year, the pair signalled their commitment to each other with complimentary designs, with both featuring arrows and the infinity symbol.

A tattoo is a big step, especially when indelible marks on your skin are so strongly linked to another person. So it’s no surprise that many of us struggle with the idea of couple’s tattoos.

What if you and your partner break up? Will it affect your future relationships or cause you pain every time you glance on it? It’s a minefield.

Tattoo artist Alice Nicholls tells Metro.co.uk: ‘I do matching couple tattoos all the time, but in the industry, we know more often than not, we will see the same people again in a few months to have a cover up.

‘This mostly depends on the design – names tend to be most likely to cover, with matching hearts and an initial as a close second.’

Although she advises choosing a design that can be easily changed (or given a different meaning if things go south), cover-ups and laser removal aren’t always necessary.

We asked three people who got matching tattoos with other people how it turned out for them – and it seems post-ink regret is all about the strength of your connection.

‘When we hold hands, the tattoos are next to each other.’

Kelly Robinson-Key, 34, from Carmarthenshire, South Wales, got a matching tattoo with her husband on the way back from their honeymoon.

‘Our son is autistic so we didn’t want to leave the country so decided to honeymoon in Blackpool and the Lake District,’ she says.

‘Driving back home, we wanted to see this big waterfall or get a tattoo – we didn’t have time for both.

‘I called the tattoo shop on the off chance they could fit us in and amazingly they could. I later found out that the wife of the tattoo artist heard our plight and said he couldn’t say no.

The couple both went for four red kites, shaded in their favourite colours.

‘My husband is purple, I am blue, my son chose brown and my daughter chose yellow,’ says Kelly. ‘We went for the red kite to represent our move to Wales nine years ago 

‘We live 200 miles from family and I am a full time carer to our son. We are an extremely close family as we don’t have anyone else to lean on. The tattoo represents that.

‘We have it on opposite arms too, so when we hold hands the tattoos are next to each other.’

‘We’ve called them our wedding rings.’

Sophia Cheng, 35, from York, got a matching tattoo with her partner after
staying with a Dayak community in Kalimantan, Indonesia, in 2017.

‘They’re traditional bamboo tapping ones. And they’re of the traditional Dayak symbol, which was once for head hunters,’ she explains.

‘The community offered to mark us, especially my partner. They said he had no way of communicating with the gods if he had no markings.’

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The couple went one step further and had their relationship blessed by an elder in the forest while they were there.

‘So we’ve called them our wedding rings (since we’re not so into getting ‘married’ per se),’ Sophia says of the tattoos.

‘Although I have told him, I’ll reframe that story if we ever split up. I’m never getting rid of this tattoo – it’s really special to me.

‘We’re still together, 13 years last week!’

‘Our tattoos make us stronger.’

Couple’s tattoos aren’t just for romantic pairings. Lizzie Adams, 36, from Dover, Kent, has one with her best friend, who she first met in 1999.

‘We lived round the corner from each other and were thick as thieves,’ she says. ‘We lost touch for around 10 years, but fast forward 2020 we rekindled our friendship.

‘We have this bond and we can’t seem to not be in each other’s lives. I love him with all my heart and more and would love us to be together. But for whatever reasons we haven’t got together.’

The pair both have multiple tattoos and last year, Lizzy helped her friend pick a new one out for his neck; a hummingbird. They ended up with a matching set.

‘I told him he couldn’t have it as I wanted it and we joked for ages. He got it done and then soon after I got it done too – our tattooist was like “er okay,”‘ she says.

‘It was then time for him to get another tattoo and he got a back piece done as well as 111 on his left ankle, identical to mine. 

‘One of our favourite films is Walter Mitty. We both love the storyline and relate to it, so he got a quote from that on his shoulder. 

‘Also, growing up we called each other fruit bat. The saying was “hello my little fruit bat, wanna be my round tree?” – I have a tattoo on the top of my thigh reading “hello my little fruit bat”. 

‘I’d love to say we are a couple, we act the way a couple does and neither can not be in each other’s lives. Maybe one day. But our tattoos make us stronger for definite.’

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