Wife calls marriage ‘insane,’ hates her husband

A woman who has labelled marriage “insane” has revealed why she “hates” her husband, likening him to “a pointy Lego brick underfoot”.

A prominent US journalist has shocked fans by revealing she “hates” her husband – but insists she has no plans to divorce him.

Heather Havrilesky, 51, makes the bombshell confession in her new book, Foreverland: On The Divine Tedium Of Marriage – likening her spouse of 16 years to “a pointy Lego brick underfoot”, “a smelly heap of laundry” and a “snoring heap of meat”, the New York Post reports.

US journalist Heather Havrilesky shocked longtime readers by revealing she often ‘hates’ her husband, Bill. Picture: Instagram

The author, who previously penned the “Ask Polly” advice column for New York Magazine, married her husband, Bill, back in 2006, after he sent her an email praising her work.

The couple now have two daughters, aged 12 and 15, but Havrileskysays their union is constant work, and she wanted to write a realistic memoir about the hardships of marriage.

“The reason I wrote the book in the first place is in our culture we love to tell stories about falling in love,” she told The Times. “There are a lot less stories and books and movies about actually making a relationship work over the long haul.”

The couple married in 2006.

“I just kept picking up books about marriage and then throwing them across the room,” she said. “They just felt so false.”

Havrilesky said she hopes her book is a refreshing antidote to the “carefully curated glimpses of people’s lives, which you see so often on Instagram and Twitter, where everything is serene and lovely and calm and loving”.

However, she is prepared for backlash.

In one chapter of her new book, she writes that she had a crush on another man while she was married – a confession that is sure to make many readers uncomfortable.

But the writer insists she told her husband about her feelings as they were unfolding, and he didn’t mind her writing publicly about it.

The author hopes her book is a refreshing antidote to the curated couple photos that are frequently posted on social media. Picture: Instagram

“I knew that was sick and wrong of me,” she said. “But in real life from the very beginning I’d told Bill every beat of the situation, to the point where he was like, ‘I’m honestly bored of talking about this. You’ve never fantasised about anyone? This is just normal stuff. It’s not the end of the world.’

Havrilesky said she and her husband are extremely honest with one another – something that has helped their relationship to stand the test of time. Despite their frustrations with each other, they believe their union is a lifetime commitment.

While her new book is a warts-and-all look at the “drudgery and monotony” of marriage, Havrilesky insists her intention is to show that it is an institution worth defending.

The writer recently underwent treatment for breast cancer, and Bill was by her side.

“I hate it when people say their husband is their best friend, but he is my best friend, my therapist and my mother, in one,” she said.

This article originally appeared on the New York Post and was reproduced with permission