Here’s Why My Husband Hates “Mad Men”
by Susie Essman
This title is disingenuous. My husband doesn’t hate Mad Men. He likes it a lot. Not as much as I do because my like borders on obsession and fixation. But he likes it. What my husband hates, is me, after I watch Mad Men. Every time I finish watching an episode, with absolutely no proof whatsoever, I accuse my husband of cheating on me. How can I not? Over the six seasons I’ve been watching the show, every single male character has cheated on his wife. Every single one! Maybe not Bert Cooper but I’m not completely sure about that. Even the ones that love their spouses have cheated. And I’m not just talking about Don and Roger because really, who can turn down Jon Hamm or John Slattery. Even the ones who are grossly unattractive and you can’t imagine that they would find a woman to cheat with are cheating.
It’s fiction you say. Why would you assume your husband is cheating when you have absolutely no evidence? Don’t get rational with me please. Believe me, I know, I’m not an idiot, yet a part of me can’t let go of the suspicion and have even gone so low as to search for evidence. For the record I have found none. And my husband is not a particularly dissembling guy, plus he’s a really bad liar so you’d think that if there were some proof, I would have found it by now.
Still, after every episode, the nagging feeling persists. Sometimes I won’t speak to him for an entire day after watching a particularly disturbing episode like the one where Don treated Sylvia like a sex slave. I’m driving the poor guy crazy, you say. Mind your own business. I come by my insanity honestly. My father was a chronic philanderer. I realized that at a young age. It created some not-so-pretty family moments. And I’m Sally. I was 13-years-old in 1968. Sally is what? 14? Growing up in Westchester just like me. Although I didn’t have the waspy parents or the divorced father with a cool apartment in Manhattan. Still, it all resonates so deeply. The colors, the hair, the clothes, the cigarettes, the assassinations, the draft dodging, the cars, the music, and the cheating. Oh, the cheating.
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