My Husband Quotes

“When it comes to love, I’ve learned nothing: I love too intensely and I’m consumed by my own love (analysis, jealousy, doubt)—so much that when I’m in love, I always end up slightly extinguished and saddened. When I love, I become harsh, serious, intolerant. A heavy shadow settles over my relationships. I love and want to be loved with so much gravitas that it quickly becomes exhausting (for me, for the other person). It’s always an unhealthy kind of love.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“If we could identify our last times as easily as our first times, thousands of moments would be lived more intensely.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“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.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“My husband has no name; he is my husband, he belongs to me.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“More generally, the idea that my husband existed before meeting me is surreal, even revolting.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“I knew I was cheating on my husband for the right reasons (having a lover makes me even more inaccessible and mysterious).”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“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.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“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?”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“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.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“In your twenties, separation can take an entire year, but if one of you lacks the courage, you can add two years more to the count. After forty, it takes at least ten years to separate. Ten years between the moment you realize it’s not working anymore and the moment you decide to leave.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“the idea that my husband existed before meeting me is surreal, even revolting.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“I do my best, but most of the time I’m too busy being in love to be a good mother.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“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.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“My relief mitigates my pain. It’s the relief that comes when what we’ve been dreading finally happens. When we’re playing hide - and - seek and our hiding place is discovered. When a loved one we cared for deeply who’s been sick for a long time passes away. When the main character of a horror movie is caught by the monster who’s been hunting them. It’s a good thing. I have nothing left to fear, because what was bound to happen has happened. I have nothing left to fear, because the worst has happened.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“In reality, marriage didn’t calm me down. I realized at the very moment we said “I do” that my husband could still divorce me. Then I hoped that he would want to buy a house with me, and then have a child with me, certain that these acts would be more solid than a contract signed at city hall or a promise made before God. I was constantly awaiting the next step. I discovered a world of proofs of love, with commitment everywhere and love nowhere. And fifteen years after our first date, I still sleep just as poorly.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“Tonight, I decide that if I could have one magical power, I would want to control dreams. I would inflict horrible nightmares on anyone who posed a threat to me, and meddle in my husband’s sleep to make him dream of me each night. I would imbue the fear of losing me into his subconscious, constructing a world in which I leave him for another man and he dies of sadness. I would show him my body in its most magnificent form so that he would never stop desiring me, and our house looking its best so that he would always want to stay. I would weave beautiful images of us into each of his nights so that he would continue loving me.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“If I could speak to Phaedra, I would tell her that it is even more painful to love someone you already have. Unlike her, I have no real reason to cry. If I had to explain to a passerby why I'm crying, what could I possibly tell them? That I'm devastated because my husband thinks I'm a clementine?”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“It is the universally recognizable sadness of impossible love.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“I love too intensely and I’m consumed by my own love (analysis, jealousy, doubt)—so much so that when I’m in love, I always end up slightly extinguished and saddened.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“Let’s take Wednesday night, for example. The children had gone to bed, and we were watching a movie on the sofa. My husband didn’t take my hand even though I placed mine right on my thigh. Then I slid my hand under his. He didn’t react. A few minutes later, he changed position, let go of my hand, and didn’t reach for it again. When I zoom in on that minute, it’s clear to me that my husband doesn’t love me anymore and that our marriage is in great danger.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“When I’m with my husband, I don’t need to see our friends. I also don’t have any desire to visit my parents, and I don’t miss my children. My husband is enough for me. He, on the other hand, likes to be surrounded by people. He comes alive when he’s among groups. He likes going out and meeting new people. But his sociability is painful for me. 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.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“passion can also grow from domestic stability, from consistently punctual returns home, from the proof of commitment, from the repetition of daily life.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“My wife is sublime—she is almost absurdly beautiful, a beauty that has been chipped away at over time only by her lack of self-confidence.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“It's easy to identify a first time, but we rarely know when something is happening for the last time.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“Today I’ve learned to hide it, to pretend, but deep down there is still only one thing capable of getting me out of bed at any hour of the day or night: love. I’ve never managed to get any other hobbies.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“No matter what I do, my husband is my refence point, my measuring scale, my sea level.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“But being an excellent father does not automatically make you an excellent husband.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“Miserable and powerless, I witness the transformation of our couple into a family.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“Is it bizarre to feel tenderness toward my husband’s dandruff?”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“I don’t have to tell him everything: the couples that last are the ones that keep the mystery alive.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband