“As it turns out, confession can be a very powerful aphrodisiac.”
In “Wife 22″ by Melanie Gideon, Alice Buckle’s marriage has gotten boring. She’s been married for twenty years and has two teenage kids who don’t seem to need her very much anymore.
So when she receives a survey on “Marriage in the 21st Century” in the mail from the Netherfield Center for the Study of Marital Happiness, she agrees to participate. Known as Wife 22, she’s assigned to work with Researcher 101.
During their discussions, she shares intimate details of her marriage, how she and her husband are growing apart, and how everything about her life seems to have slowed down and gotten dull.
But the relationship between Alice and Researcher 101 gets complicated when she realizes that it’s been ages since anyone bothered to get to know her in such a way.
Here’s a snippet from the author’s website:
“And, just like that, I found myself answering questions.
7. Sometimes I tell him he’s snoring when he’s not snoring so he’ll sleep in the guest room and I can have the bed all to myself.
61. Chet Baker on the tape player. He was cutting peppers for the salad. I looked at those hands and thought, I am going to have this man’s children.
67. To not want what you don’t have. What you can’t have. What you shouldn’t have.
32. That if we weren’t careful, it was possible to forget one another.
Before the study, my life was an endless blur of school lunches and doctor’s appointments, family dinners, budgets, and trying to discern the fastest-moving line at the grocery store. I was Alice Buckle: spouse of William and mother to Zoe and Peter, drama teacher and Facebook chatter, downloader of memories and Googler of solutions.”
Goodreads.com says, “For fans of Helen Fielding’s “Bridget Jones’s Diary” and Allison Pearson’s “I Don’t Know How She Does It” comes an irresistible novel of a woman losing herself . . . and finding herself again . . . in the middle of her life.”
If you’ve been a mom for a while and know how it feels to lose the fire in your relationship, you will fall in love with this book. It’s the relatability of Wife 22 and the romance of her situation that draws you in and makes you rethink your own relationship.
A few take away ideas to relight you and your husband’s fire:
– Take a date night and pretend you’re strangers. Ask questions like you’re getting to know one another all over again. The best part is that at the end of the date, you get to have your “first kiss” and take him inside.
– Send your husband a love letter like you’re in high school. “Do you like me? Check Yes or No.”
– Play “Questions” before bed. Have him ask you a question that you have to answer 100% honestly. Then you get to ask him and get an honest answer.
Wife 22 is available in stores and online now – and you can check out a trailer for the book below:
