My Husband

by Maud Ventura

know that I have to control myself in order to love.

My husband has no name; he is my husband, he belongs to me.

This position of power is exhilarating.

I can quantify his love each Sunday upon his return from the market depending on the total printed on the receipt in the bottom of the shopping bag.

It’s in these moments that I’m most likely to make a mistake,

they are all waiting for a man.

Years later, I realized that the phrase wasn’t from my past, but from my future. It was not a reminiscence, but a premonition: “I’ve never done anything but wait outside the closed door.”

Is it bizarre to feel tenderness toward my husband’s dandruff?

Actually, our children more than get along: they are co-dependent. (Is this a character trait I passed down to them unwittingly?)

I’m not a fan of large, open spaces—they oppress me.

It resists translation. I can’t manage to re-create its poetry,

I never cut off more than necessary because my husband prefers me with long hair.

Women are supposed to know this kind of thing.

Anything less than two seconds is not the kiss of someone in love.)

It’s a habit I’ve been trying to correct for years: I can’t help complimenting

Why does she see this as bad???

I’ve always admired the women around me too much, and revealing this to them renders me insidiously inferior in comparison.

Louise is not a true beauty: she pays to be pretty.

More generally, the idea that my husband existed before meeting me is surreal, even revolting.

Why doesn’t he say I was part of the story, too?

if one of the two of them is the main character of the story, the other is never erased because of it—the

Of the two of us, why is it always me who’s asked about our homelife and vacation plans?

I was not aware of his sweet tooth. My husband has always preferred savory food.

I cry, and the worst part is that I’m sure the tears suit me.

“You’re lucky,” they tell me confidently. As if I won my husband in the lottery. As if I thwarted the statistics by marrying him. In other words, they are suggesting that he could have done better than me.

Your husband is the infatuated one. Not you. You don’t even really love him.”

We speak without anything important ever being said around our table, which profoundly frustrates and bores me.

Miserable and powerless, I witness the transformation of our couple into a family.

I buy her books with independent heroines who defy dragons, sail warships, dig up dinosaur bones.

I love our children, that goes without saying. I love them, but still, I would rather have not had them. I love them, but I would rather have lived alone with my husband. Today, I think I can say with certainty that I could survive the death of one of my children, but not of my husband.

When my husband went back to work and I found myself home alone with a newborn, I felt like a prisoner,

As a mother, I’m not present enough, devoted enough, attentive enough.

I do my best, but most of the time I’m too busy being in love to be a good mother.

The chorus repeats as though to taunt me with the idea that loving is easy. My husband listens to this Rex Orange County song on repeat.

I have a tendency to see the negative in everything, but his song choices are rarely kind.

The idea is simplistic: Frank Sinatra sings that he is falling more in love each day. How could my husband subscribe to such a dangerous idea?

If my husband thought he would always love me more as time went on, didn’t that mean that he would never really love me in the present?

“If we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable that we will never be so.”

But now that we’re finally alone, he seems completely emptied out.

I don’t understand his need to be in contact with the outside world when I’m right next to him.

I pinned a great deal of hope on our legal union, thinking it would erase all my fears,

I wouldn’t waste a minute being in love.

Because you never meet the love of your life out of nowhere, as unexpected as it might seem. We must be, even unconsciously, prepared to meet someone.

No matter what I do, my husband is my reference point, my measuring scale, my sea level.

Maxime gives me an incredible urge to sleep. Proof that there is nothing between us:

Hey so like that’s actually the opposite of the truth

That’s why I never feel guilty for being unfaithful: How could I, when I do it out of love for my husband?

I’ve always seen days by their color. It’s how I locate myself in time.