Life is no fairy tale, perhaps we should be glad of that. Love is the worst. Especially for women.

My husband and I love each other. I don’t think he will ever leave me. Nor will he ever look at me with joyous desire—he doesn’t believe in it. Marriage is a contract to him, and he does his part. I am grateful for that. We work, we pay bills.

VENUS DANCING BY OONAGH C DOHERTY 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 16

Life is no fairy tale, perhaps we should be glad of that. Love is the worst. Especially for women.

You hope that no matter how dreary your job, how dark your house, how cold your toes, some day love will come along. The dullness will slide off, like the skin off cheap custard, and underneath real life will gleam, sun-colored creamy and fragrant.

When you are married, you start to see that the skin is never coming off the custard. The mundane is all there is.

Once upon a time, you could, while removing your husband’s wet laundry from the top of the drier for the third time in a week, think nostalgically of what might have been. Oh, the comfort of former lovers! As time passed, you could…