I am one of those women who like to talk. About anything. Someday, riddled with senility, I’ll just talk to myself and wear a shower cap to the grocery store, but for now I like an audience. I also like gatherings, because they encompass two of my favorite things: food and conversation
The best is a ladies’ lunch. Not my mother’s ladies’ lunch; I probably should not use the word ladies. I don’t wish to sit around dressed in tweed, eating cucumber on white bread and discussing how trendy Talbots has become. I like it when a group of my girlfriends and I get together, preferably at my house so that I can make Ina Garten’s infamous chocolate cake and linguine with clams (which I don’t trust at restaurants), and go deep.
Sure, a little “Who does your Botox?” or “Where do you buy those soft sheets?” can be sprinkled in at the beginning, but I also want us to speak honestly about the realities of being women, mothers, and wives. I want to know if you wake up covered in sweat, can have an orgasm without equipment, or are convinced you have an undiagnosed infectious disease. If you’re content with your life choices or terrified of your mortality.
I’ve never been shy about expressing my thoughts, much to the horror of my parents, who were constantly covering their ears with their hands and whispering,“This too shall pass.” I’ll regale my kids’ bus driver, Otto, with my story of having to snap a chicken’s neck when I was a teenager living on a farm in Nowheresville, Spain, or say something naughty on a late night talk show. Some of my most existential conversations have been conducted with the posse of strangers I see at the dog park every day.
However, there’s one topic that induces panic. When I hear words like marriage and spouse, I start to sweat. You see, I have a dirty little secret. A secret that keeps me from diving into some of the more titillating conversational waters.
Deep breath. Here goes: I’m happily married. It might be my most boring attribute, and there’s nothing I can do about it! I love my husband and he loves me. The end. Yawn. Dammit! Whenever the conversation at one of these girly soirees turns to marital affairs (pun intended), I feel anxiety course through me like a first sip of bourbon. Usually around this time I take a potty break.
Here’s a typical scenario. Delia confides that her affair is now circling the third year. She’s been meeting her lover at his apartment, in hotels, and, once, while her husband was away, in her apartment. She has such a disastrous marriage and such a tantalizing affair that she gets to do most of the talking while the rest of us suck down spaghetti pomodoro. She practically owns the event! I can’t even slip in some faux advice. I haven’t so much as looked at another man in 16 years. I sit there in silence.
Lydia’s husband left her with two small children. She has lost 20 pounds and also (for reasons I don’t understand) her adult acne. We talk for hours about her ex-husband’s new, much younger girlfriend and how much he’ll regret choosing boobs over substance. How he’s a despicable fool and she should have known that when she met him in college and he was the head of a fraternity. Lydia’s situation is endlessly captivating and sympathetic; the girlfriend’s Facebook page affords us hours of speculation. We can devote an entire meal to dissecting “that woman’s” makeup blog, her 40 followers, and the fact that her lips are so inflated they take up half her face.
And then once in a while someone will turn to me and inquire about my husband and my marriage. “Well,” I answer sheepishly. I riffle through my list of grievances—he won’t do dishes, sometimes he uses my toothbrush—but these sound so amateur next to Lydia’s husband blind-siding her with a much younger woman he’s been dating for almost as long as they were married. It renders me silent. A state I find most uncomfortable.
Even married Alison can hold the podium for a while, because her husband is infuriating. She had the foresight to marry a narcissistic prick. So Alison gets to tell stories about how Gregory never expresses love, is sexually shut down,and thinks Alison needs to “lose the turkey fat around her neck.” And then we go for 30 minutes on how reprehensible that is and how he’s a misogynist. I’m telling you right now, if Gregory doesn’t take it down a notch, I can’t hang out with Alison anymore. I can’t compete on that level.
The absolute lowest moment for me is when the fateful question comes: “How often do you and your husband have sex?” I have lost friends over this question. I don’t want to. I could plead the Fifth. I mean, why should I have to answer? This is the reality of my life and nothing to be ashamed of. I summon the strength and spit it out. And then the women gasp, as if I’ve confessed that I shot my dog. One of them always slams her fist on the table; one friend’s wineglass once broke in her hand. I’m sorry! We’re hot for each other. Jesus.
I wish there were a way to conjure some drama without someone getting hurt or contracting an STD. I guess it’s just an area of discussion I’ll have to concede to others. I have to think of myself as the therapist who listens and offers advice but doesn’t divulge anything about her personal life. And I won’t get $200 an hour.
Now, don’t let me mislead you here. I said I love my husband, not that our marriage is perfect. Sure, we fight (which is nonsensical, because I’m the one who’s always right), but we have a utilitarian marriage and manage to still maintain some romance.
The question has to be asked: When did a happy marriage become so taboo? Sitcoms depict married life as a bickering couple; he’s usually heavy and not very attractive, and she’s usually too smart and beautiful for him. There’s a lot of eye rolling. The couple grudgingly put up with each other and a laugh track. Switch to a cable drama: one of them has murdered the other. The best-selling books and records are always slanted toward relationships gone bad. And how would daytime talkshows survive if we couldn’t trawl for signs of infidelity or enforce paternity tests? It's embedded in our culture.
The few couples I know with good marriages keep it on the down-low. We meet after dusk at nondescript, out-of-the-way joints. Sometimes Brooklyn, sometimes one of our homes. We close the shades. We make sure nobody sees us holding hands, giggling,or, God forbid, embracing. So until things in our country change, I will have to become masterful at changing the subject and, in some cases, flat out lying about the state of my union.
And after one of my girlfriend lunches, I will do my usual: weep on the subway about the tenacity and fortitude of my marriage. We’ll have family dinner; my husband and I will play Scrabble while the kids do their homework. Later we’ll make love and fall asleep in each other’s arms. And swear to never tell another living soul.
This story is excerpted from Go Ask Ali: Half-Baked Advice (and Free Lemonade) by Ali Wentworth.
This story appears in the May 2018 issue of Town & Country. Subscribe Today
