My Husband

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Themes

The Thin Line Between Love and Obsession

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses emotional abuse.

Throughout the novel, Ariane is aware that her intense love for her husband is atypical. Ariane knows that in its natural course, passion should give way to space, respect, and affection, but this is simply not true for her. She admits, “I think of my husband all the time; I wish I could text him all day … but I restrain myself, because I’m too old to act lovesick” (3). While Ariane is aware of the disproportionate nature of her feelings, she still thinks of it as love. However, the novel’s subtext suggests that Ariane’s feelings have crossed the boundaries of healthy love into the gray area of problematic obsession. Through showing the troublesome dynamics between Ariane and her husband, the narrative suggests that love, if not supported by respect and trust, can easily morph into an unhealthy and controlling dynamic.

It is clear from the very beginning that Ariane’s love for her husband is not accompanied by trust. Ariane suspects that her husband lies to her and toys with her feelings. However, rather than confront him over these issues, Ariane devises secret punishments against him, including having sex with other men. At one point Ariane even fantasizes about killing her husband to punish him for his insistence on sleeping with the windows shuttered. Even as Ariane continues to document her obsessive love for her husband, she also spies on him and hides his things. The chasm between Ariane’s declarations of love and her hostile actions shows that what she considers love is an amalgamation of obsession, codependence, and insecurity.

Ariane’s husband too thinks he is deeply in love with her. In the Epilogue, he calls Ariane “sublime… almost absurdly beautiful” (253). He cannot imagine life without Ariane and knows that “no other woman will ever love [him] like she does” (256). Nevertheless, he has no qualms about controlling Ariane, making her fearful, and coercing her into a pregnancy. He even plans to use an undetectable male contraceptive with Ariane so she assumes she is infertile and is driven wild by insecurity.

The dynamic between Ariane and her husband shows that their marriage parodies the idea of romantic love. While romantic love is all-consuming, it is true only when based on a genuine desire to do good by the object of one’s love. Ariane and her husband want to chase this ideal, but without the core value of selflessness. Their obsessive love is also a comment on society’s messaging about coupledom. A romantic couple is seen as the formative unit of society, which creates tremendous pressure on people to partner up. Like Ariane, they sometimes end up making a dubious choice.

The Oppressive Nature of Gendered Expectations

In a darkly satirical recollection, Ariane flashes back to why she bought an imitation diamond ring years before meeting her husband. She bought herself the ring so she could project the air of a married woman. Out at a grocery store or a restaurant, her ringed hand immediately bought her social capital: People gave her more importance and she felt she could finally “show the world that [her] existence had value” (164). This satirical sequence throws light on the novel’s key theme of the oppressive nature of gendered expectations.

While Ariane frets about her marriage all the time, the novel throws in subtle suggestions that Ariane may not, in fact, be suited to a conventional marriage. One such suggestion is Ariane’s admiration of Marion, Lucie’s sister. Marion, a literature professor, has been married twice and has no children. Though she loves men intensely, she does not persist in relationships. Ariane feels more of a kinship with Marion than with the other women of her acquaintance, identifying with Marion’s penchant for dramatic situations. At another point, Ariane confesses, “I never felt so alone as I have since I’ve married” (61). Ariane disdains open relationships, yet in the very next section sleeps with Maxime. These examples show marriage is not as much Ariane’s medium as she thinks, but the social pressure to couple up is so important to her that she cannot consider any alternative. Thus, her marriage is not just a personal decision but also a social performance.

Marriage is also a means for social mobility for women. As a high school teacher with working-class roots, Ariane knows she needs to marry into a wealthy family to move up in life. Her choice of husband is deliberate, because he allows her access to a world formerly closed to Ariane. Entering the world comes with its own fee: Ariane now feels pressured to perform the role of an effortlessly beautiful and wealthy woman. The intersection of gendered expectations and class biases makes Ariane’s life even more difficult.

Another area in which Ariane feels the pressure of gendered expectations is motherhood. It is suggested that Ariane is ambivalent about parenthood, but opts for it to please her husband and play the role expected of her. As a mom, Ariane is judged for her choices, such as not breastfeeding her children. Societal pressures around gendered expectations therefore trap Ariane in an ever-tightening labyrinth, with her husband plotting to exploit her insecurity about fertility to give him another child. It is clear that gendered expectations influence her psyche, making it challenging for her to find her true identity in the midst of society’s subliminal messaging around marriage, motherhood, and beauty.

Appearances Versus Reality

Ariane calibrates her actions by how they appear to others. Ariane’s first-person narration shows that she even plans how her legs are folded on the couch when her husband comes home. She assumes a careless posture, a cup of tea next to her so that it seems that she hasn’t been breathlessly awaiting her husband. Often, Ariane seems to be performing, which is a comment on contemporary culture’s tendency to blur the boundaries between appearance and reality.

Ariane feels that by manipulating appearances, she will also be able to control reality. She often refers to herself as “cold” (76), a label given to her by her husband. By cold, Ariane implies she is cool, effortless, and unmoved—adjectives that are defied by her passionate, anxious narration. Thus, she represses her feelings in the hope that they will genuinely make her cold. However, as the narrative progresses, it becomes clear that Ariane’s focus on appearance does not alter her reality. In fact, her performance takes an emotional toll on her, manifesting in her mysterious but debilitating itch.

Ariane often uses the word “beautiful” to describe herself and her house, effects she deliberately orchestrates. When something challenges the symmetry of beauty, it agitates Ariane, such as the living room lamp, which is “modern and pretty” (31), but too intense. Ariane ends up breaking the lamp on purpose, to supplant it with a lamp with more romantic lighting. Her attention to the lamp suggests Ariane derives her self-worth from objects. She takes extra care to arrange her domestic space, such as spending an inordinate amount of money on the right carved mirror for her foyer. So great is Ariane’s need for perfect appearances that she wills her children into a semblance of order, instilling in them the importance of being quiet and going to bed early.

Ariane is also deeply preoccupied with projecting a certain persona through her personal appearance and mannerisms. Anxious to hide her working-class roots, she admits to having bought and read books on etiquette to learn how to present herself as a wealthy, sophisticated woman. She dyes her hair blonde, never telling anyone else that her natural hair color is brown. On Friday night, Ariane pretends to be asleep when her husband gets home so that he doesn’t have to see her “with no makeup, in pajamas, [her] hair undone” (181). Although Ariane has other talents—her teaching ability, her translation skills—she fails to value her intellectual strengths, believing that only her outward, beautiful appearance has any value.

As the novel progresses, Ariane becomes more and more desperate to maintain the appearance of a perfect life, even though she is inwardly wracked with anxiety, emptiness, and even sadness. Through the gaps between Ariane’s outward appearance and private reality, the novel suggests that not everything is always as it seems.