My Husband

1. Would you date Ariane (the narrator)? Would you date her husband?

2. Are Ariane and her husband simultaneously codependent and on track to live happily ever after?

3. What voids does romantic love fill? Do you ever think that you should expect more or expect less from love?

4. Does Ariane truly love her husband? Does her husband truly love her? Are these questions ultimately up to them to decide, or are there some sort of objectively true answers to these questions that exist outside of their perception?

   • Ariane states that she has always loved her husband unconditionally. Is there some truth to the idea that Ariane and her husband both love each other unconditionally to an unusual degree?

   • Is Ariane in love with love rather than being in love with her husband?

5. Do you imagine that both Ariane and her husband would be dissatisfied in what most of us might see as a more normal, stable relationship? Do they both need each other to be exactly as they are? Is Ariane somehow content in her misery? (At one point, she states that she would have preferred not to love, that she suffers the consequences of an overly intense and inappropriate love.)

6. What do you think would happen if Ariane knew the truth about her husband? Would her passion grow deeper or fade away?

7. Ariane explains that she likes starting points (the first chapters of a book, the first fifteen minutes of a film, the first act of a play). Do you relate to this, or do you prefer something else?

8. How do you measure/quantify someone’s love for you? Do you relate to Ariane’s feeling that the more her husband runs important errands, the more she feels he loves her?

9. Ariane explains that “her life before doesn’t concern him,” that she doesn’t have to tell her husband everything as “the couples that last are the ones that keep the mystery alive.” She states that he doesn’t need to know what happened when she ended things with him and ran back into the arms of a former lover (a few months after they met). Is Ariane onto something or misguided? When does mystery fuel romance and when does raw revelation fuel romance? What do you think of Ariane feeling revolted by the idea of her husband existing before meeting her?

10. Ariane explains that her husband calls her “sweetheart” but she yearns to be a femme fatale? What do you think about this? Have you had a similar experience?

11. How often have you felt like it was your fault when a relationship ended?

12. When in a relationship, how often do you think about and have fear surrounding the ending?

13. Are you someone who is concerned about social etiquette when it comes to buying the right kind of flowers for the occasion, wearing the right clothes, eating according to a certain set of rules, and so on? How does this change depending on who you are interacting with?

14. Is Ariane cold in the way that she describes herself? What makes her or anyone seem cold?

15. Is Ariane a good mother, a bad mother, something in between? Is it a good thing that her love for her husband surpasses her love for her children? Do you agree with her that she is too busy being in love to be a good mother? What do you think of Ariane loving her children but wishing she didn’t have them? What do you think of Ariane’s idea that having children with the man you love forces him to be with you for years even once desire has fizzled out (describes this as making the love less pure)?

16. Ariane’s husband says “Welcome to real life!” while congratulating their friends on becoming parents. Ariane questions what this means…(She asks herself: Does he mean an unexciting and overly restrictive existence? Does real life for him amount to abandoning his dreams and renouncing his freedom?) What do we mean when we talk about “real life”? Are we sometimes implying something that is actually negative, unhelpful, and possibly untrue in some way?

17. How do you feel when you see your partner acting in a way around others that you don’t recognize? Is this usually unsettling? Is this ever exciting?

18. What do you think of the way that Ariane compares herself and her relationship to others? To what extent do you do this when trying to determine if who you are and what you’re doing in life is good enough? Is this how you determine if who you are or what your relationship is like is normal and/or acceptable to you? Do most people pretend to be happier and more put together than they really are? What might we find if we could see everyone’s lives behind closed doors (as Ariane wishes to as she considers setting up hidden cameras)?

19. Is marriage all about compromise? Is Ariane misguided with her frustration that her husband insists that he needs the shutters closed to get proper sleep? What do you think about her fear that it’s a power play, a way for him to assert dominance over her?

20. Do you agree with Ariane that passion can also grow from domestic stability, from consistently punctual returns home, from the proof of commitment, from the repetition of daily life? Or is she lacking in awareness in the sense that there is a lot more going on in her marriage (which doesn’t sound like stability) that is keeping the flames burning?

21. What do you think of Arianne’s thought that revealing one’s vulnerability is always an error? Is it a good thing that she hides so many of her thoughts and feelings from her husband?

22. Are you ever feel insulted when someone says that you are “lucky” as if you won your husband or wife in the lottery? Does this imply that you are undeserving, that your partner could have done better than you?

23. What did you think of the analysis given by the stranger at the hotel pool, that Ariane has it all wrong -- that her husband is actually the infatuated one and that she doesn’t even really love him? Could relate to Ariane’s burning desire for this stranger to tell her what to do?

24. Ariane feels miserable and powerless as she witnesses the transformation of her relationship becoming a family. What do you think of Ariane’s profound frustration and boredom with dinner conversations which seem to be limited due to presence of the children? Do children often get in the way of romantic connection in a marriage? What can be done to limit these sorts of roadblocks to maintaining passion and connection?

25. Ariane states that she tends to see the negative in everything, and she generally seems highly self-aware despite her instability. When does our self-awareness seem useless? Is there often a false perception that self-awareness inevitably leads to change?

26. What did you think of Ariane’s internal meltdown in reaction to her husband talking about the weather (fearing that stimulating conversations have died)?

27. What did you think of Ariane’s desire to control dreams (if she could have one magical power)? If you had this power, whose dreams would you control and what might those dreams entail? (Ariane wants her husband to dream of her each night, constructing a world in which she leaves him for another man and he dies of sadness – showing him her body in its most magnificent form so that he would never stop desiring her, their house looking its best so that he would always want to stay)

28. Can you relate to Ariane not wanting to be reduced to her physical appearance (since physical beauty fades) and instead complimented on her personality or the sharpness of her intellect?

29. Like Ariane, do we often look for patterns and create meaning where none exists? Can this kind of meaning-making sometimes be purposeful even if delusional?

30. What do you think of Ariane’s affairs? (Ariane explains that she never feels guilty for being unfaithful as she does it out of love for her husband – to ease the romantic pressure that weighs entirely on her husband by dividing it among several people)

    • Ariane states that her infidelity has the inverse effect as she returns even more in love with her husband (contradicting her reasoning for having affairs).

31. Ariane is afraid of scaring her husband off with her libido, stating that it intimidates him and he must always be the one to make the first move. She fears that her desire for him will seem monstrous, that her excitement will disgust him if she comes too hard. She states, “Masculine desire is fragile.” What do you think of this? Are you ever scared of scaring someone off with your libido? Is masculine desire fragile? Is feminine desire also fragile?

32. When engaging sexually with her husband, Ariane mentions that she is “past the age of giving blow jobs.” However, this doesn’t seem to be the case during one of her affairs. What do you think about this contradiction?

33. What do you think of Ariane’s idea that she and her husband might be missing out on arguing, that tranquil partnerships are uninteresting and couples who don’t ever argue come off as inferior? Ariane goes on to say that she refuses to engage in ordinary squabbles. Rather, arguing must be a matter of jealousy or profound doubt, existential drama and painful soul-searching. Ariane thinks it’s essential that a couple’s arguments always be about love (rather than a banal argument about doing the dishes).

34. What do you think of Ariane’s online romantic education? She retains lessons such as: giving her husband a lot of space, be distant to create mystery, make him jealous, don’t confess what she feels so as not to smother him, don’t burden him with an excess of emotion and sentimentality, don’t let herself go physically.

35. What does it mean to love too intensely? Ariane explains that when she loves she becomes harsh, serious, intolerant – a heavy shadow settles over her relationships. She states that she wants to be loved with so much gravitas that it quickly becomes exhausting for her and the other person – it’s always an unhappy kind of love. (Ariane states that deep down there is only one thing capable of getting her out of bed at any hour of the day or night: love. She’s never managed to get any other hobbies.)

36. What did you think of Ariane buying herself a ring and pretending to be married even when she was single? Ariane explains that this showed the world that her existence had value, and the transformation took place in the gaze of others: people assumed that she was expected somewhere, that she had better things to be doing.

37. What do you think of the (potential) contradiction between the value Ariane places on remaining mysterious while wanting nothing of her husband to be mysterious (reading his emails, going through his things, wishing he kept a diary that she cold read, etc.)? Ariane questions if she should feel guilty going through his things, but she concludes that she should not for one simple reason: She wishes he would do the same. She would finally have proof of his jealousy and confirmation of his commitment. Ariane states, “Unfortunately, I know he doesn’t. Unfortunately, my husband trusts me.” (upset that he never seems to find/read her fake love letters no matter how hard she tries, upset that her husband seems like he is not curious about her)

38. Ariane wants to avoid seeing a movie about separation, a man leading a double life and a marriage that’s falling apart. Ariane doesn’t want her husband to be exposed to this. Have you ever felt a similar way, wanting to stop your partner from reading a book or watching a movie based on its content and how it might impact them?

39. Is being obsessed about love a way to avoid thinking about real problems? Or is love perhaps the real problem? How do we decide what “real problems” are?

40. How would you describe yourself in three words?

41. Ariane believes that she has lost the benefit of novelty long ago, that her husband never looks at her anymore like she’s a stranger entering a bar or someone else’s wife. She struggles to understand why she’s never stopped observing her husband from afar, with the necessary and sufficient distance to be able to admire him. What are your thoughts on this? How has she been able to do this for so many years?

42. What do you think of Ariane’s book of punishments? Does punishment/revenge make sense when the person on the receiving end is unaware that it’s happening? (Ariane explains that she feels like her husband has paid her debt after she punishes him, and then she can start to forgive him.) While Ariane’s book of crimes and punishments sounds absurd, is this representative of how people tend to engage with each other in relationships (but perhaps with less consistency and awareness)?

43. Ariane explains that she is starting to feel relief (or at least seems to be attempting to) with the thought that her husband is finally leaving her. Is there a relief that comes when what we’ve been dreading finally happens? Is there a way that we can utilize this relationship between fear, relief, and worst-case scenarios in our day-to-day anxieties?

44. Ariane states that at some point we all have a decision to make: chose to love or be loved. She explains that there is no couple where love is shared equally – so we have to determine what kind of romantic life we’d like to lead: Will we be the one who receives or the one who gives? Ariane explains that in the end she chose her husband, loving more seemed like the more noble choice (while renouncing the comfort of being loved). Ariane explains that she would have been a better mother if she had chosen to be loved rather than to love, had the necessary headspace to form real friendships and focus on her career. What do you think about Ariane’s ideas surrounding having this choice?

45. What did you think of the ending of the book (the epilogue)? Were you surprised by this ending? Did you find it disturbing and/or romantic? How did it change your perception of the rest of the book? If you read the book again (knowing the ending), would you look at Ariane in a different (perhaps more compassionate) light? Would you think about their love (and even love in general) in a different light? Have you had the same views of love for many years? Do you ever find it worthwhile to rethink your perceptions?