My Husband Won't Fit
夫のちんぽが入らない
The Moonlight essay
BooksWhat My Husband Won't Fit Understands About the Pressure to Be a "Normal" CoupleRead the essayStoryline
The whole story, ending included.
A marriage in which penetration is physically impossible; a memoir-novel adapted with a title that television could barely say.
Kumiko leaves a home of quarrelling parents and a sharp-tongued mother to go to university and live on her own. On her first night Kenichi, a student a year above her who lives in the same building, walks in without knocking to help her unpack, and she falls for his easy warmth. When they try to make love for the first time, he cannot enter her; forcing it only makes her bleed. They keep trying, search magazines and the internet for anyone with the same trouble and find no one, and marry anyway, because being together matters more. Kumiko starts teaching at a rural primary school.
For a while it is enough. Then she finds a points card from a sex establishment in Kenichi's pocket and understands that she was the only one going without. Moved to a new school, she faces a class that falls apart around her, and a pupil whose home is in trouble. Convinced that she is defective, that everything goes wrong because of what her body cannot do, she writes about it on an internet message board and starts meeting men from it: Mickey, who listens, and Arihara, whose tastes are unusual but to whom she can talk about work. She sleeps with some of them. Kenichi goes on visiting sex workers. Neither says a word. Kumiko's mind gives way; she leaves teaching and shuts herself away. When a relative dies who was said to have initiated the village boys, she wonders whether the cause lies somewhere in her family, and she and Kenichi try again.
At last everything comes out. Kumiko tells Kenichi he was not her first, and that she knows where he goes at weekends; he walks out. When they finally sit down together it is the first honest conversation of their marriage. They decide not to have children, and they tell both sets of parents the real reason there have been none, instead of letting Kumiko's mother believe her daughter cannot conceive. The series ends with the two of them choosing to live on together as they are, without penetration and without children, and deciding that this is still a marriage.
Starring
Natsumi Ishibashias Kumiko Watanabe (née Yamamoto)
A young woman who marries the man she loves but cannot have intercourse with him, and comes to believe she is defective.
Kumiko Watanabe (née Yamamoto)’s story
Kumiko leaves a home of quarrelling parents and falls for Kenichi's easy warmth. When he cannot enter her, they search for anyone with the same trouble, find no one, and marry anyway. A points card from a sex establishment in his pocket tells her she has been the only one going without, and at a new school her class falls apart. Sure that everything fails because of what her body cannot do, she writes on a message board and starts meeting men from it, sleeping with some of them. She leaves teaching and shuts herself away. When Kenichi likens her to the Virgin Mary, she asks whether he believed she was a virgin, and everything comes out. After their first honest talk they decide to live on together without children, and tell their parents the real reason.
Aoi Nakamuraas Kenichi Watanabe
Kumiko's easy-going husband, a year above her at university, who suffers at not being able to make her happy.
Kenichi Watanabe’s story
Kenichi walks into Kumiko's new flat without knocking to help her unpack, and she falls for him. When he cannot enter her, he smiles and tells her it does not matter, and they marry. Soon he is spending his weekends not at his parents' house, as he tells her, but with sex workers. He sees that her smile has become forced, but cannot bring himself to ask what is wrong. When a relative of hers dies they try again, and fail again. He likens her to the Virgin Mary; she asks whether he believed she was a virgin, they tell each other what they have hidden, and he walks out. Then they sit down to the first honest conversation of their marriage, decide not to have children, and tell both their families the real reason.
Machiko Onoas Tomomi Terada
The mother of a pupil in Kumiko's class at the school where everything starts to go wrong.
Mariko Tsutsuias Saeko Yamamoto
Kumiko's mother, always one remark too many, who assumes her daughter cannot bear children.
Satoshi Matsuoas Mickey
A man Kumiko meets on an internet message board, who listens to her and becomes her first lover outside the marriage.
Motoki Ochiaias Arihara
A man with unusual tastes whom Kumiko meets online when she is ill, and to whom she can talk about work.
Why it matters
My Husband Won't Fit takes a problem almost nobody discusses, a couple who cannot have penetrative sex, and the silence that grows around it. Kodama's autobiographical book began as a short essay in a self-published collection, and when it was advertised in the Asahi newspaper the advertisement asked readers to check the title at the bookshop. The drama, directed by Yuki Tanada, follows the silence to its costs: shame, the belief that one is defective, secret affairs and paid sex, a mother's assumption that a childless daughter is broken, and a mind giving way. It refuses the usual resolution. Nothing is cured, no child arrives, and the marriage survives because two people finally talk. It leaves a question many couples never ask aloud: what a marriage is made of, if not the things everyone assumes it needs.