If You Want to Murder Your Spouse, Read These Healing Short Stories
Kate Moss, photo via Pinterest
My new book Thirteen Emotions has a little something for everyone. There’s style, sass, scandal. And of course, sneaking around. If you’ve ever felt like you want to murder your spouse, there are at least three healing short stories you’ll want to read. Or perhaps need to read is more accurate. Maybe they’ll help you get over. Even heal from whatever made you angry in the first place.
Healing through reading short stories offers a unique escape and connection to your own experiences. Even if you’re reading about somebody else’s. Each narrative, no matter how brief, provides a glimpse into different lives and emotions. It allows you to reflect on your own challenges, triumphs, disappointments. The simplicity of a short story's structure invites vulnerability, as characters grapple with relatable struggles. You’ll be pulled into moments of understanding and empathy.
In the comfort of well-written prose, you can find solace, inspiration, and the realization that healing often comes from recognizing that other people go through the same things as you do. Perhaps not exactly the same, but close enough to see your struggles in their situations. Or situationships. (Ugh, men.) Healing through short stories transforms the act of reading into a journey of personal growth and acceptance. Ultimately, allowing you to move on.
After all, it’s much better to mute and move on than murder. Although, some characters in Thirteen Emotions didn’t get that memo. I suppose sometimes you really just feel like you want to murder your spouse.
If You Want to Murder Your Spouse, Read These Healing Short Stories
The Perfect Excuse
A young wife of 23-years-old awaits the arrival of her beloved husband. The Perfect Excuse short story is set in New York City in the 50s or 60s. It’s the tale of a retro love affair. The devoted wife is in the kitchen at their Manhattan apartment, preparing to simmer spaghetti sauce all afternoon; her husband’s favourite food. She’s expecting him home later that evening but then there he is, standing at the kitchen door, telling her something she hadn’t been anticipating.
So, when was it? When did things change? There must be someone else. There had to be! It was the only explanation—no matter how ghastly the thought was. But when had he had the time to find someone else? He worked around the clock, he unclogged the drains, he spent lethargic weekends reading the newspaper with a cigar and a whiskey. They took vows. Didn’t that mean anything to him? Who was he to take the Lord’s name in vain and swear to something he had no intention of keeping? That alone was grounds for murder. It would be justified. A crime of passion, they’d call it. It would be splashed everywhere: Housewife murders her philandering husband in a fit of frenzied adoration!
Broken Glass Forever
In Broken Glass Forever, a mother and wife stumbles upon her husband in a very compromising position. He tries to cover up his actions, but in her words, his attempt is “disgustingly cliché.” What will she do? What can she do? She has two daughters to think about. If she feels like murdering her spouse, that’s all it can be: a feeling. And a fleeting one at that.
This time, however, he isn’t saying those words to me. He hasn’t given me a thought, not even a second thought. I’m as invisible as my love apparently is to him.
I’m stopped outside of our en-suite bathroom. My chest has been bound with a tangle of taut ropes and my fingers tremble like poached eggs on their way to brunch. I’m afraid to move, even an inch, because I’m not confident that my legs will hold me up. The world, our world, has stopped. My ears are flooded with my heavy heartbeats and I’m willing it all to shut the fuck up so I can hear what he’s going to say next.
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A Man in Your Situation
This story takes place from the mistress’s point of view. But here’s the twist: she was with the husband before he met his current wife. So, in her eyes, she had him first. Which, technically she did. However, it doesn’t mean that she has any rights to him now. Unfortunately, neither of them see it that way. She’s determined to build a future with this unavailable man. After all, he’s elevated her life to a place she wouldn’t have gotten to without his financial good fortune: expensive lingerie, cars, hotels, real champagne.
Does she know that we have a whole life together hidden just underneath the glossy veneer of her perfect existence? Would she care? If what you told me about her is true, she wouldn’t like the idea of me at all: an open mind, a fat ass, a roaring river between my legs that flows just for you. My guess is that she’d care a little too much. Maybe get too involved. Maybe reach out to me herself, tell me I’m a cataclysmic cunt who thinks of nothing but her own gratification, and that’s not something either of us want. She knows about our past, but she’s blissfully unaware of our present.
Okay, so there is a common theme here: adultery. It’s an icky topic. It makes me shudder to think about, let alone imagine and write about. However, I often find that the things that haunt me the most are the most fun to write about. Not because the topics themselves are “fun” but because I have to challenge my imagination and put myself into shoes I never thought I’d be in. (Like a pair of wedge sneakers when I much prefer strappy sandals.)
Kate Moss, photo via Pinterest
Here’s a bonus short story (or passage, more like it) about wanting to murder your spouse:
In the quiet chaos of a Tuesday evening, as the laundry piled high and forgotten dishes stacked taller than Karlie Kloss in heels, the thought flickered through her mind: the desire to silence him. If only for a moment. It wasn’t truly death that she craved, but rather an escape from the incessant bickering, the furious eye rolls, and that frustrating habit of leaving the recycling on the counter beside the sink instead of putting it into the bin. Just put it in the fucking bin, she fumed. Her heart raced as forbidden plots seeped into her mind, painting a vivid picture of what it would be like to wipe the slate clean. But you couldn’t murder your spouse for simply annoying you, could you? If only things took a more dramatic turn. Yet, the absurdity of it all tangled with a weary but fleeting smile, reminding her that love often dances on the edge of irritation, teetering between desire and despair.
If you’re intrigued by these healing short stories or if you’re someone who feels like they want to murder their spouse (figuratively, of course), buy Thirteen Emotions from my bookstore, Amazon, Book Soup, and more.
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