Nearly two decades ago, on a rainy June day in Brooklyn, I got married. Everyone said the bad weather was an auspicious sign, though I suspected that was simply a consolation prize that had cemented into superstition, like how a bird pooping on your head is supposed to bring good luck.
Still, 18 years in, we’ve had a great run so far: two amazing kids, a successful move from the city to the suburbs, extended families who actually like each other, and genuine mutual affection—I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather bicker with over household tasks, make new inside jokes and memories with, or snuggle up with for yet another episode of Frasier after a long day.
But if I’m honest? My relative contentment has less to do with how well matched we are as a couple than the fact that, at the jaded old age of 48, I know the grass doesn’t get much greener, matrimony-wise. I share eerily similar complaints with most of my straight, married women friends, but as one likes to joke, “Good news: your model isn’t broken—they’re all defective.”
Lately, it’s been hard to ignore the sense that heterosexual marriage is not the happily-ever-after of fairy tales and romance novels, but a perilous arrangement that benefits men more than it does women—and may even be a trap.
Surveying my circle of long-paired-off Gen X and elder millennial friends, so many seem to be in my situation, with the wife bringing home the larger (sometimes only) paycheck while somehow also doing the lion’s share of childcare, cooking, and cleaning. The scientific jury may still be out on the popular conception that marriage makes husbands happier and healthier than it does wives, but it’s true that men remarry faster and at higher rates than women do. Purely anecdotally, so many women I know choose to remain single after their marriages end—or, as seems to happen more and more frequently, eschew heteronormative relationships and explore queerness, sometimes for the first time.
In step with the growing indignation with the institution of marriage—and curiosity about alternatives—the publishing landscape has exploded with memoirs about divorce, cheating, and polyamory, and novels about tradwives, lavender marriages, and everything in between—and I seem to have devoured most of them. Miranda July’s 2024 novel All Fours sparked a conversation about women blowing up their lives in perimenopause. More recently, Lindy West’s Adult Braces spawned a cottage industry of hot takes over the author’s polyamorous arrangement. Anelise Chen’s genre-blending Clam Down looks to the mollusk kingdom for inspiration in the wake of divorce. With all this creativity, I didn’t think the story of a philandering husband could inspire much more than a yawn from me, but Belle Burden’s rage-inducing Strangers knocked me flat—and had me rooting for the newly confident woman and bestselling author born from the ashes of a collapsed marriage.
More than anything, there’s a book by the queer scholar Jane Ward that I can’t stop thinking about. The Tragedy of Heterosexuality was recommended on Diabolical Lies, the podcast cohosted by Caro Claire Burke, whose debut novel Yesteryear explores the dark side of an influencer’s social-media-optimized marriage. Whip-smart, funny, and always through the lens of research and historical context, Ward examines how modern straight culture was forged from a mix of early 20th-century eugenics, beauty and hygiene products, and self-help—or as Ward calls it, the “heterosexual-repair industry.”
As I listened, usually while washing dishes, preparing meals, or driving the kids between activities, the book gave me new perspective on the surprisingly short history of heterosexuality as a concept, and marriage as something other than a legal contract and property trade. If it feels like women are getting a bum deal—and that straight men in particular are in crisis—The Tragedy of Heterosexuality offers context on why these relationships feel so fraught. While Ward doesn’t suggest that straight people should try to become queer, she does have ideas about how to overcome the misogyny that’s baked into centuries of heterosexual marriage, and which is at the root of so many of these stories.
I recently saw a tweet claiming how important it is to “gatekeep” your marriage, to keep the specifics of your relationship to yourself, lest you damage the reputation of your partner or your bond over time. As for me, I think the conversation and transparency are important, helping me feel both seen and empowered as I navigate the issues that invariably crop up in such a central partnership of life. I feel lucky that more and more women are speaking out about the intricacies of their individual situations, from financial to sexual to domestic and more. Knowledge is power, and that brings more luck than rain or bird poop ever could.
