Burden explores male entitlement in traditional domestic arrangements. Her primary example is her husband, James, who left the family abruptly after over two decades of marriage. When James declared that he did not want custody of their three children, Burden saw his decision as wholly selfish: “This was not just an affair. This was not just a rejection of me. He was abandoning all of it, and all of us” (13). Burden describes the dynamic of her marriage as a severe power imbalance. James had complete authority over their home life. A “compliant person generally” (16), Burden readily deferred to James in all matters, accepting his controlling nature as his way of caring for her and the children. However, James’s dictatorial approach was revealed to be a way to gratify his own desires, not to protect his family. Burden uses James’s behavior to expose how men socialized to value patriarchal assumptions about heterosexual marriage assume the right to do whatever they please and face few repercussions.

Burden avoids attacking her ex-husband’s character, which allows her to instead critique the system that produced James. Burden connects her experience to the marriages of her and James’s parents. Parallels between these couples’ dynamics add nuance. Burden’s father left her mother when Burden was young; she now sees that “[w]ithout being conscious of it, as a child and a young adult, [she] absorbed this legacy of infidelity” (116). James’s father also abandoned his family. Although women like their mothers and grandmothers were devastated by their husbands’ unfaithfulness, they euphemized their cheating partners as “naughty” and “flirt[s]”: “[T]he betrayals chalked up to unavoidable temptation, a natural accessory to success” (116). Social mores dictated a “boys will be boys” mentality, dismissing male philandering and betrayal as natural.

After James left, Burden blamed herself for his unhappiness—self-flagellation underscoring the cultural script that women take responsibility for failing to satisfy men’s needs. She wondered whether placing blame on James was wrong: “Had I spun a story that was false, that unfairly made me the victim and him the villain?” (164). Often, Burden was made to defend herself in social situations or to accept offensive remarks, such as her gynecologist’s suggestion that quitting her job to care for her kids made Burden less appealing to James. In contrast, James exhibited no self-doubt over his actions; to this day, he has offered no explanation for his departure or lack of interest in his children. He felt no responsibility and feared no social or legal consequences; rather, other men supported him, like the friend who recommended a tough lawyer.