Wren Ashby

There is something mildly concerning about the number of terrible marriages I have created.

Cheating husbands. Lying husbands. Controlling husbands. Husbands with secrets. Husbands who disappear. Husbands who die under suspicious circumstances.

Meanwhile, my actual husband is downstairs asking if I want him to make me something to eat.

So… explain that. 😂

I am ridiculously happy in my marriage. I genuinely like my husband, which I feel like doesn’t get talked about enough when people talk about marriage. Of course I love him. But I also like the man. He’s my favorite person to hang out with. We can spend an entire weekend doing absolutely nothing exciting and I’m perfectly content.

And yet, give me a laptop and apparently my first thought is:

What if her husband is a complete psychopath?

I don’t know what that says about me or actually, I kind of do.

Happy marriages are wonderful to live in.

They’re just not always that interesting to write about.

Nobody wants to read 300 pages about two people who communicate pretty well, trust each other, split the chores and spend Saturday deciding where they want to go for lunch.

Chapter Twenty-Seven:

They went to Costco.

Riveting stuff, right?

Although if you’ve ever been to Costco on a Sunday afternoon, there’s probably a thriller in there somewhere.

The marriages I write about are usually nothing like mine, and maybe that’s exactly why I enjoy writing them so much.

I’m fascinated by what happens behind closed doors.

You can know a couple for years and still have absolutely no idea what their marriage looks like when nobody else is around. We all know those couples who look perfect on Facebook. Beautiful anniversary posts. Vacation pictures. Matching outfits at Christmas.

Then six months later they’re getting divorced and everyone is like, WAIT, WHAT HAPPENED? I know because that’s what happened in my past life/marriage.

So THAT makes it interesting to me.

Not because I secretly think every happy couple is hiding a body in the basement. Although, as a thriller writer, I’m certainly not ruling it out.

It’s the idea that you can share a house, a bed, bank accounts, friends, families and an entire life with someone and still not know everything about them.

That’s creepy as hell when you really think about it.

How much do we actually know about the people we love?

How much do they know about us?

And what happens when the person you’re supposed to trust more than anyone else is the person lying to you?

There it is.

That’s the good stuff.

At least for fiction.

In real life, no thank you. I would like my marriage boring and my books completely unhinged.

Maybe that’s part of why I’m able to have so much fun writing these women now.

I’m not writing them because I’m trying to work through some secret unhappiness in my own marriage. I’m sitting in a life that feels safe enough that I can wander into some pretty dark fictional places and then close the laptop when I’m done.

One minute I’m wondering whether my character’s husband has been lying to her for seventeen years.

The next I’m asking my actual husband if he wants tacos.

It’s a strange little existence.

And honestly, sometimes the hubby gets dragged into it.

I’ll randomly ask him something like, “If your wife disappeared and the police asked where you were Tuesday night, what would you say?”

There is usually a pause.

Because apparently normal wives don’t ask these questions.

He should’ve read the fine print.

He’s also heard way too much about people who don’t exist.

I’ll be talking about a character and say something like, “No, because she can’t tell him yet. She doesn’t know that he knows.”

And this poor man has to figure out which imaginary dysfunctional marriage we’re discussing today.

He handles it surprisingly well.

I think there’s another reason terrible marriages keep showing up in my stories, though.

Marriage gives you access.

Your spouse knows things about you nobody else does. They know your routines. Your fears. Your passwords. Where you go. What time you usually come home. What pisses you off. What hurts you. What you look like when you’re lying and what you look like when you’re scared.

That’s incredibly intimate when you love and trust somebody.

Now take the trust away.

Suddenly all that intimacy becomes dangerous.

THAT is basically a psychological thriller gift basket.

A stranger can stalk you.

A coworker can betray you.

A friend can lie to you.

But there’s something especially unsettling about realizing the person sleeping beside you isn’t who you thought they were.

And apparently I could write about that forever.

There’s also the fact that I love writing women who eventually realize something isn’t right.

Sometimes they know immediately. Sometimes they’ve spent years explaining away little things because that’s easier than admitting what those little things might mean.

Then something happens.

One lie doesn’t add up.

One story changes.

One tiny detail refuses to stay buried.

And suddenly she’s looking at the person she knows better than anyone and wondering if she ever knew him at all.

Yes, please.

Give me 80,000 words of that.

Maybe that’s why I love domestic and psychological thrillers so much as a reader too. The scary thing isn’t necessarily waiting outside the house.

Sometimes it’s already inside.

So yes, I will continue sitting happily beside the man I love while writing about husbands who lie, cheat, manipulate, disappear, fake things, hide things and occasionally end up dead.

And my husband will continue looking over at me every once in a while and wondering what the hell I’m typing.

Probably best he doesn’t ask.

Although, for the record, if anything ever happens to him, somebody please delete this blog post before the police find it.

I really don’t need that kind of evidence floating around.

~Wren