Obsession is not desire: ‘My Husband’ progresses beyond tropes of mental illness

In her column “Brutal Monsters,” Cate Burtner ’25 offers commentary on the literature of mental illness.

“She fangirls about her husband for 300 pages.” — The person who recommended this book to me.

“My Husband” by Maud Ventura follows an unnamed 40-year-old mother of two, and — more importantly — wife to a mediocre financier, whom she is devoutly obsessed with and refers to unsettlingly and repetitively as “my husband.”

“My Husband” is a funny book, but the narrator’s fawning descriptions of her husband and ridiculous flights of fancy are tinged with depressive undertones. There are certainly some good lines to laugh at, but you will feel a little guilty about it. 

The novel overall is a collection of the narrator’s twisted thoughts and mental gymnastics. “I knew I was cheating on my partner for the right reasons (having a lover makes me even more inaccessible and mysterious).” She convinces herself that this mystery will strengthen her husband’s attraction to her, and therefore, their relationship. 

The lines played for laughs are secondary to the psychological terror that the narrator experiences intensely, records meticulously and shoves in the reader’s face all day and night. She narrates at length about how much she loves her husband and how phenomenal he is. After an ounce of self-reflection, statements like, “I have never felt so alone as I have since I decided to marry him,” begin to pile upwards.

The narrative ignores their two children almost as much as the protagonist does. She calls them, “the kids I never wanted.” They don’t get names, personalities or speaking roles. The young boy and girl are an afterthought because they are secondary to the object of the narrator’s obsession: her husband.

The archetypes of miserable parent, cheating spouse and unstable obsessor are subverted by “My Husband” — in this book, it is not the guy’s fault. This is not a reluctant father with a mistress and mental health issues, this is a mother with all of these things. In “My Husband,” Ventura innovates. But she does so with an important asterisk.

New, up-and-coming writers today are obsessed with obsession. It is all anyone seems to be writing about. But this is not what Ventura is going for. “My Husband” is not another trendy obsession novel in the vein of “Big Swiss” or “Yellowface.” It is a novel about how the narrator thinks, what makes her cry and what drives her to continue waking up in the morning. It paints the bleak portrait of a woman, unfulfilled, as opposed to the cinema of an obsessive wild goose chase.

Often, obsession plots feel like a cop-out. While obsession may be a regular part of writers’ lives, I really don’t think it’s as prevalent in most daily routines or larger motivations as contemporary fiction makes it seem. In all these books, characters uproot their lives impulsively when they find another person they are “obsessed with.” This lies on the false presupposition that “obsession” is a fool-proof excuse for a person to act illogically, immorally and against their own interests. As if an obsession with something is the only thing that could drive a person (or a plot) toward any sort of action.

There is something deeper in “My Husband.” The narrator is not just obsessed, she is plagued with mental illness and is drowning in the misery of her own precarious situation. At one point, she says that “65 percent” of her daily thoughts center around her husband. She is a cautionary tale, and can be seen descending into darkness day after day. She cries often, has very little enthusiasm for life outside of her marriage and has deep-rooted misogynistic strongholds that infect every corner of her life as a woman.

I have come across reviews of the book tagging it as “thriller” or “horror.” Sure, it is a scary book — but it is not scary because the narrator is dangerous. She’s not, really. The book is scary because the narrator is miserable (and, as it becomes increasingly clear, suffering from mental illness). 

Having a character with intrusive thoughts or obsessive tendencies does not necessarily make a book a thriller or a horror story. We need to see an unrealistic and entertaining plot for that to be true. And I think there probably are real women who think like this narrator; also, this book doesn’t really have a plot (which is not a bad thing). Some reviews reference a “genre switch” toward the end, when the story seems to take a darker turn. But the novel is increasingly disturbing throughout, there is no shift — only a progression.

“My Husband” resists trends and tropes. It is non flashy. There is some action, but at its core, it is about the progression of unhealthy thought from a dissatisfied woman. The narrator is not a fangirl, she’s not a horror movie madman, she is just not okay.

Editor’s Note: This article is a review and includes subjective thoughts, opinions and critiques.

The post Obsession is not desire: ‘My Husband’ progresses beyond tropes of mental illness appeared first on The Stanford Daily.