Dear Abby: Wife's Writing Bothers Husband

[cereta]

DEAR ABBY: I'm happily married to the man of my dreams. We met after I had gone through a particularly difficult breakup, and I often credit him with "saving" me. We've been together 15 years and have two beautiful children.

While we both have professional careers, I also write romance novels as a hobby and side business. With every book authors write, a tiny part of their lives sneaks into their characters, storyline, etc. When my husband reads my novels -- as he does often -- he becomes sullen, withdrawn and angry. He can't seem to understand that 99 percent of what I've written is fiction. He's convinced that everything I write is somehow linked to an old boyfriend or actual events.

This is causing hurt feelings and resentment from both of us. Should I give up writing, or should he learn to deal with it? -- HAPPILY EVER AFTER

DEAR HAPPILY EVER AFTER: It's a fact that talented writers have active fantasy lives. Authors who come to mind would be Mary Shelley, who created "Frankenstein," Anne Rice and her vampires, E.L. James, who shared her S and M fantasies with the world -- and countless male authors including John le Carre, Daniel Defoe and William Shakespeare. (Obviously, Ian Fleming did not do everything that his character, James Bond, did.)

Ideally, your husband -- the man of your dreams -- should be able to tell you if something bothers him without sulking. And if he trusts you, he should be able to accept that what you are writing is fiction. If that's not the case, rather than your giving up writing, your husband should quit reading your books.

Comments

[cereta]

I couldn't resist this one, for obvious reasons.

First, as a side note, Abby: you suck at specific examples. No, seriously, I've seen this before in your columns. Your specific examples always make me cringe.

Second, I want to crack a joke about how often my spouse has nagged me to write something saleable so he can quit his job (nice that he has faith in me, but ha, ha, no), but there's a deeper level here that really disturbs me. I mean, there's a very simple answer to this specific problems: if her books bother you, STOP READING THEM. But underneath that are some really issues of trust, and of how you as a couple deal with your problems. No one is perfect; the occasional sulk is going to happen. But if that's a standard response to something, it's a behavior that needs to be addressed.

I kind of roll my eyes at the reflex, "couples counseling!" advice that so many advice columnists have, but this seems to me to be a textbook issue for it: there's a specific issue with underlying problems that could stand to be talked out in front of a third party, and which you could develop specific strategies for. I don't think it could hurt, anyway.

[xenacryst]

I feel like I need to steal your "failure to communicate" icon, because yeah - what we have here is. I mean, to be a teensy bit understanding, there are a lot of people (more guys, maybe?) who really can't grasp the separation between fantasy and reality, especially as it applies to other people, so he may have that particular roadblock to overcome as well as whatever issue he's having (sex is evil, I'm not the hero, whaddyoumean your hormones aren't monogamous, etc.). But still, there's an issue, and either it's going to remain a covered up sore point or it needs to be talked about.

[watersword]

Allow me to show you my active fantasy life! In the imaginary relationship I am constructing, the husband is mad that his wife isn't reproducing the family myth of him saving her in her novels. He wants a novel where he's the hero. His wife's failure to provide him with this, and her failure to provide him with reassurance about why he is not the hero in her romance novels (answer: they're fiction), are the "cause" of his hurt feelings, and he doesn't know how to express this other than by pouting.

Or, you know. Something totally different, because I have constructed this out of whole cloth!

[vass]

Good thing she doesn't write murder mysteries!

(Sorry. I got nothing. Anything else I could say about this would turn into a flood of misandry.)

[sathari]

....OH MY GOD DUDE. OH MY GOD DUDE.

...where does he think science fiction/fantasy writers get their stuff? Murder mystery writers, like vass said?

I mean. The only thing I can think is that this guy does not in fact consume any other fiction at all. Like, his interests are all in reading/watching non-fiction of whatever sort, the only reason he reads his wife's books are that they're his wife's (and specifically that he is basically treating them like reading her love letters from old boyfriends and working himself up into jealous distress with it). And that he just doesn't have a concept of "the imagination" or "a fantasy life" at all and the whole idea of "making stuff up for fun and profit" never really came on his radar before?

Or at least that is the only explanation that allows me to believe he sees his wife as an actual person. Because if he does have a concept that people can imagine things that are not real or at least didn't happen to them personally, well enough that they can tell stories about that that other people will want to read/watch/etc., but that he can't imagine that his wife could be one of them... UGH. Either he doesn't see her as a person, full-stop, or at best he has a far too low estimate of her overall mental abilities.

(And then there is the stuff about "rescuing" her and I'm seeing hints of some serious slut-shaming in here. UGH. )

Other than that: echoing cereta that Abby's examples are gross, gross, gross. However, Abby's advice is pretty much spot on. Though if hubs is the type I described in scenario-the-first, where he just isn't into fiction period and has no frame of reference for people making it, something he might read instead of his wife's books is non-fiction accounts by other fiction authors in multiple genres about how they get ideas/do research-and-worldbuilding for their work as a frame of reference--- and more to the point to make him do some of the emotional labor around his self-created distress about this (instead of making his wife explain her creative process and him not believing her, which is UGH in itself, but, seriously, dude, manage this one yourself and be a good partner for her).