My Husband

by Maud Ventura

my husband leans toward me and whispers into my ear, “We need to find a moment to talk.” Then, after a short pause, he adds, “It’s important.” I’m frozen, unable to say a word.

I love my husband as much as the first day I met him. My love hasn’t followed a natural progression: the passion from the early days of our relationship never mellowed into tender affection.

Passion is inappropriate with two kids at home, unseemly after so many years of shared life. I know that I have to control myself in order to love.

But I don’t know of any novel, any film, any poem that can serve as my example, show me how to love better, less intensely. There is also nothing

I can’t hope for anything more, I can’t hope for anything better, and yet the void that I feel is immense, and I am always waiting for him to fill it. But what could possibly fill what is already full?

can’t hope for anything more, I can’t hope for anything better, and yet the void that I feel is immense, and I am always waiting for him to fill it.

when I recount in a falsely nonchalant tone (when in reality I find it unbelievably romantic), “I met my husband by chance at a rock concert.” My husband has no name; he is my husband, he belongs to me.

am relieved to find three letters that have nothing concerning or unusual about them (no handwritten letter or envelope without a stamp). When I look up, I realize that a neighbor is watching me from a few meters away. Panicked, I greet him before rushing back inside. It’s in these moments that I’m most likely to make a mistake, so I take a minute to gather my composure.

It’s nearly twenty years old, but I keep it out of nostalgia, despite the risk: What if my husband found it one day? How would I explain to him why I have a solitaire diamond that’s practically identical to the one he gave me the day he proposed?

When my husband is absent, the house resounds less, like a piano whose soft pedal is engaged: the sound comes out muted, domestic life loses variation and intensity.

I wonder whether I’m the only one to notice the universal women’s waiting room.

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

No one can see my neuroses except me. The way I see myself is not how other people see me. Everything is okay. I belong here.

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

Nicolas and Louise listen; they are amused, but I am not. My husband has not once uttered my name. I am absent from his story—erased. He says “I,” referring only to himself, and it embarrasses me.

enough literary texts in my life to know that it’s not innocuous.) It was thanks to the light on my phone that we found the panel. It was me who suggested to him that a rental space would probably choose a code that’s easy to remember. It was me who tried 0000, then 1234. Why doesn’t he say that? Why doesn’t he say I was part of the story, too?

My husband concludes by thanking Nicolas and Louise for contributing to his birthday gift. In fact, he’s wearing his new watch tonight. But not a word of thanks to me for having organized the surprise, sent the invitations, reserved the space, paid the security deposit, ch...

I listen to Nicolas and Louise: they say we. Their grammar is inclusive: if one of the two of them is the main character of the story, the other is never erased because of it—the

wish I could observe them once the guests leave. I’d like to see how they behave once they’re finally alone. I wish I could watch their relationship from day to day; I wonder if they still seem so in love when the baby has been crying a lot, when fatigue sets in, when the worries pile up, or when one of them falls ill.

So my husband thinks his best friend is married to a pineapple, while he married a clementine. He lives with a winter fruit, a banal and cheap fruit, a supermarket fruit. A small, ordinary fruit that has none of the indulgence of the orange nor the originality of the grapefruit. A fruit organized into segments, practical and easy to eat, precut, ready for use, proffered in its casing.

After fifteen years of life together, I believe I deserve more than being compared with a vulgar clementine. My husband is going to leave me. I can picture it already: signing the divorce papers at one end of the table, my eyes red with tears, moving into a tiny, dark two-bedroom, unable to find another man over forty, nights spent single-handedly taking care of the children I never wanted.

Each new person who enters into our life is an additional dilution of his attention, a dilution of him, and I’m horrified by this. The energy he expends toward others hurts me: it tells me that I am not enough for him.

When I arrive, my husband isn’t there. I’m early, it’s not 1:00 yet. But my first thought is that he’s not coming. He’s left me for good now that he’s realized I’m a cold mother and an overly demanding wife.

If I could speak to Phaedra, I would tell her that it is even more painful to love someone you already have.

We suffer the consequences of an overly intense and inappropriate love. We feel no complacency about being a woman in love. No satisfaction with ourselves for experiencing such passion.

I love. But don’t think at the moment of loving you I find myself innocent in my own eyes, or approve.

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

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.

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

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

How could I become familiar to him so quickly? After the first months of enchantment, I observed, powerless, the merging of our lives, which only wound up distancing us even more.

I saw my husband become so used to my presence that he no longer found it miraculous.

I imagine it so vividly, but my husband doesn’t make any move at all, because he’s too busy watching TV.

He had only said a few words; it would have been ridiculous for me to read my speech (which was seven minutes long; I had practiced and timed it).

“I am the happiest man to have met the most beautiful woman in the world”: I would have appreciated not being reduced to my physical appearance and instead complimented on my personality or the sharpness of my intellect. Everyone knows that beauty doesn’t last a lifetime, unlike the bonds of marriage.

I seriously wondered whether he had grasped the level of commitment he had just taken in marrying me.

“Didn’t you tell me you loved me last night?” The response is cutting and definitive: “No.” I so needed him to remember. I so needed it to be true. The problem is that I often hear my husband tell me he loves me.

I met my sun and that day will forever be a happy memory; at the same time, yellow carried with it from the very beginning the warning of a potential betrayal.

Maxime gives me an incredible urge to sleep. Proof that there is nothing between us: when you’re in love, you want to talk to each other, see each other, be together. But when you sleep, you renounce the other: to sleep is to stop loving a little

My husband has no photos of me on his phone, so I have a hard time imagining the scene: What sequence of random events could have led to the existence of this photo?

I think Maxime must have spontaneously photographed his wife, just because he wanted to.

I often try to take a lover. These rendezvous have only one aim: to ease the romantic pressure that weighs entirely on my husband by dividing it among several people.

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

Plus, I know how to set limits: I’ve never cheated on my husband on any day but Thursday. It’s not the ...

But I would be better off facing facts: despite my best efforts, I’ve never managed to develop feelings for a stranger. I am truly incapable of having a real affair.

When my husband finally appears, I am happy to see him, even happier than normal. I never miss him so much as when I spend time with another man. My infidelity has the inverse effect of what I intend: I return even more in love with him.

I know all his clothing by heart. I could recite the labels with my eyes closed. I know where and in what circumstances he bought them—in what store, on what trip, for what occasion.

Several years ago, when we had just come home from a tennis match, my husband wanted to take a shower before making love to me, but I felt bold enough to reveal that the smell of his sweat excited me, and he entered me on the spot. Perhaps he remembered that night? His thoughtfulness touches me.

After fifteen years together, I still don’t know whether my husband is more of a breast or butt man. Tonight, my husband seems more excited than usual, but I couldn’t tell you why.

Did he find in another bed what he no longer seeks out in our marriage? Is that why he is suddenly so fiery? Or has he just left his mistress?