My Husband

My Husband (2023) is a novel by Maud Ventura. The novel belongs to the domestic noir sub-genre, exploring the marriage of Ariane, a beautiful Parisian teacher and wife, and her wealthy, handsome husband. When Ariane’s husband announces one Sunday that they need to talk, Ariane fears her actions have finally pushed her husband to leave her. She descends into a spiral of despair, unravelling the secrets she and her husband have been keeping from the world and each other. My Husband is an international bestseller, winning the Crime Writer Association’s Dagger for Crime Fiction in Translation in 2024 and the Prix du Premier Roman for a promising French debut.

This guide uses the 2023 Penguin Books UK Kindle edition, translated by Emma Ramadan.

Content Warning: The source text discusses emotional abuse.

Plot Summary

One Sunday, the idyllic-seeming life of Parisian high-school teacher Ariane (unnamed till the end of the novel) explodes when her husband ominously suggests they need to talk. Assuming this means her husband wants to end their marriage, Ariane flashes back to the week before to search for clues that might have upset him. As Ariane meticulously scans each day of the past week, it becomes clear that her domestic life is far from perfect. Although Ariane seemingly has it all—a twin career as a teacher and an English-to-French translator, two well-behaved children, and a house in a fashionable suburb—she lives in mortal fear of her husband abandoning her. 

Ariane is deeply in love with her husband, pining for him with the force of unrequited love even though they have been married for 13 years. To keep her husband invested in her, Ariane takes care to maintain an immaculate appearance and a mysterious front before him. However, she feels her husband does not return the intensity of her love and sometimes even behaves disrespectfully toward her, such as ignoring her before their friends or flirting with a waitress in Ariane’s presence. 

Ariane is also plagued by a fierce itch every night, which makes it difficult for her to sleep. One of the reasons for the itch is her husband’s insistence on sleeping in complete darkness, even though Ariane prefers some light in the room. However, Ariane has often discovered her husband can actually sleep in a lit room, which makes her fear that he is lying to her. Loathe to discuss her feelings with him, Ariane notes her husband’s slights in a notebook, and devises punishments against him to avenge herself. Punishments include not cuddling with him and hiding his things.

Things briefly look up for Ariane on Wednesday night, when Ariane’s husband tells her he loves her. However, on Thursday he denies having said the words, plunging Ariane into despair and making her doubt her sanity. To avenge herself against her husband, Ariane has sex with Maxime, a fellow parent from her children’s school. It becomes clear that Ariane often has short, day-long affairs to punish her husband for his insensitive treatment of her. Her husband appears clueless about her actions, making love to her on the very days she meets other men. He also takes little notice of Ariane’s bids for attention, such as leaving around a love-letter, supposedly from another man, for her husband to find. 

Ariane’s emotional state continues to worsen over the week, with Saturday being the nadir. It is the day of her daughter’s 8th birthday party, and Ariane feels unsuited for the role of a doting mother. She also feels people give her husband disproportionate credit for organizing the party; had she, a mother, done the same, her contribution would have been taken for granted.

When Ariane catches her husband talking intimately with her close friend Lucie, she is consumed by jealousy. To punish both Lucie and her husband, she grabs Lucie’s husband Pierre and has sex with him in the upstairs bathroom. Ariane is sure her husband noticed her inappropriate behavior during the party and is seized with guilt over her actions. 

The narrative switches back to Sunday morning. Ariane thinks her husband has learnt about her infidelity and the notebook of her punishments of him. She assumes he is disgusted and wants a divorce from her. Sunday is a nerve-wracking day for Ariane, as she counts each second till her husband has “the talk” with her in the evening. When her husband finally approaches for the talk, the subject is not a divorce at all. Her husband wants to try for a third child, since they are both approaching 40. Ariane is so relieved that her husband knows nothing about her infidelity that she agrees, hugging him in joy. Nevertheless, later that night she is again consumed by the itch, suggesting that things are not quite right with Ariane.

The narrative switches to the husband’s first-person perspective in the Epilogue. It is revealed that the husband has been controlling Ariane all along, just as she sometimes worries. He did actually tell her he loved her, only to deny it later so that Ariane doubted her reality. He deliberately ignores Ariane to make her feel insecure, and plays on her anxiety about her desirability. He has been treating her particularly poorly this week to make her feel vulnerable, so that she agrees to his suggestion for a third child. They will now begin trying for a baby, but he will secretly use contraception for a while, making Ariane think she is infertile. Ariane will grow desperate and try even harder to please him. Then, when the time is right, he will get her pregnant. 

The husband believes his actions are because of his love for the beautiful and imaginative Ariane. If he did not play these games, Ariane would grow bored of their marriage. Everything he does is for his beloved wife.