If Sally (Sally Dynevor) and Tim Metcalfe (Joe Duttine) split up, can we even still believe in love anymore? That’s the dilemma Coronation is giving us.

They’ve never seemed like a goer on paper. The aspirational busy-body with delusions of grandeur confined to a semi-detached house meets a safe, salt of the earth working class bloke with all the excitement of a skirting board.

But this delightfully mismatched Cobbles couple have survived their fair share of marital strife – including Tim’s coercive controlling dad Geoff Metcalfe (Ian Bartholomew) and Sally mistakenly believing suspecting Tim of having an affair with a nurse when actually, he was just hiding his heart condition.  Despite their ups and downs, Sally adores Tim maybe even more than her ‘actual direct imitation’ of Kirsty Allsop’s garden furniture.

However, recently their marriage has hit a rough patch thanks to Tim’s past relationship with Trisha Pinkerton, (Anita Booth) a woman who groomed him as a teenager – at least that’s what Sally thinks. According to Tim, he had a harmless fling with a sexy older woman, who took his virginity when he was 14 and she was 20.

Tim’s inability to see anything wrong with Trisha’s predatory behaviour has caused some serious friction with Sally, not to mention the fact that he betrayed her by meeting up with his old flame – on his wedding anniversary no less!

Coronation Street Executive producer Kate Brooks shares some insight into Tim’s perspective, and why he finds it so difficult to see his time with Trisha as abuse. ‘Up until this point we’ve seen Tim being quite dismissive about what happened in the past and not fully realising the extent of what happened. He didn’t feel tarnished by it, he was young, he felt it was great, it was every young lad’s dream.’

The Metcalfe marital drama is set to explode in upcoming episodes. When a tearful Sally calls at No.6 with some post for Carla Connor (Alison King) she proceeds to pour out her marriage woes to Lisa Swain (Vicky Myers). Probably not a bad shout to be fair.

When your marriage is on the rocks, talking to someone who was married to the bunny boiling Becky Swain (Amy Cudden) might just put your problems into perspective. No such luck, so Carla ends up stealthily calling Tim and ordering him to pick up his distressed missus.

This sticky issue doesn’t seem about to disappear any time soon – especially as Tim’s encounter with Trisha bears an eerie similarity to a current shocking incident of grooming on the street happens just a few doors down.

Predatory athletics coach Megan Walsh has been taking advantage of her power over student Will Driscoll (Lucas Hodgson) to coerce him into an underage relationship, right under the nose of his unsuspecting family.

Kate Brooks explains how the parallel between Will and Megan’s story will strongly impact Sally and Tim’s future in the show going forward.

‘We kind of wanted to take Tim and the audience on a similar journey at the same time, so he will become involved in the Will and Megan storyline, and be quite an instrumental part of that story as well. Through the course of that story and seeing Will and how young and vulnerable he actually is and how wrong the situation is, he will start to realise that what happened to him wasn’t right and wasn’t acceptable. ‘

‘We’ve got quite a way to go with it but it’s going to be an interesting journey to take Tim on because he’s come from a completely separate place to Sally and Steve McDonald (Simon Gregson) who all recognised early doors that what had happened to Tim was wrong. We use both stories to make sure that Tim knows that what happened in his past was not acceptable.’

Since Trisha first reared her ugly head as a thorny issue between Weatherfield’s favourite comedy couple, fans have speculated online that their relationship crisis might lead to a split that sees Sally return to the arms of her ex-husband Kevin Webster (Michael Le Vell), who is still nursing a broken heart ever since his wife Abi Webster (Sally Carman-Duttine) ran off with his no good cheating half-brother Carl Webster (Jonathan Howard).

Now that grim prophecy has never been closer to coming true.

Is it curtains for Sally and Tim?