▸ Column · Modern noir Gotham — a syndicated advice column landing on the desk of its most notorious cat burglar
CATWOMAN replies.
The letter
Eleven years married to Terrence here in Gotham, and somewhere between the lockdown sourdough and his bump to regional manager, our love life went from a steady twice-a-week to something closer to a quarterly audit — scheduled, brisk, and somehow still postponed. I want him all the time. He'd rather burn through three more episodes of whatever true-crime series is killing our nights and fall asleep cradling the remote like a rescue animal. I've raised it twice this year — once sweetly over dinner, once snippily after he nodded off mid-kiss — and both times got "I know, I know, we'll work on it," delivered with the exact enthusiasm he gives the check-engine light. He isn't cruel. He isn't cheating. He isn't even unhappy. He's just become a man for whom desire is a scheduling problem. Do I haul us to a couples therapist who'll bill $200 an hour to repeat what I've said for free — or is there a lever I haven't found?
Catwoman replies
Eleven years, sugar, and you're filing motions with a man who treats your wanting like a check-engine light. Let's find who's holding the keys here — and it's him. He's comfortable. Nothing in his evening costs him a thing whether he reaches for you or the remote. You've told him twice. Twice is the gentle version. A third "we'll work on it" isn't a promise, it's a snooze button.
So stop asking. Asking made you the one waiting for permission, and permission is just a lock he holds the key to. Don't drag him anywhere — go get your own nights back. Take a class, take a trip, take up something that lights you up so completely he has to wonder where you went. I'm not telling you to leave him. I'm telling you to quit idling in the driveway like a getaway car for a man who won't get in. A woman who's fully alive is a hard thing to sleep through.
And keep one claw out — not to cut him, just so you remember you've still got them.
The therapist? Fine, if you want a referee in the room. But $200 an hour can't manufacture appetite. That part you light yourself.
— Catwoman
Batman weighs in
Selina. You read one room and call it the whole city. You always have.
This is not leverage. It is a symptom. The man took the promotion, then went dark — exhaustion, not indifference. Diagnose before you act. Find what he carries home and refuses to name.
Your answer is the same one you leave on my rooftop every time. Keep an exit warm. Never beg. That instinct is why you go.
Do not manufacture distance and call it fire. Sit across from him. Get the truth. Some bonds are worth the fight.
Eleven years is not a getaway car. Don't teach her to drive it like one.
— Batman
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