#middlemarch

Middlemarch, George Eliot

My (45M) wife (19F) and I have been married for several months. To be quite honest, I haven’t enjoyed being married as much as I expected I would. My wife is very affectionate and always wants to help me with my work (I’m in academia), which I find more annoying than helpful. However, the main issue is that my wife seems to have developed an obsession with my second cousin (25M).

Due to some unfortunate family history that I felt it my duty to set right, I was until recently financing my cousin’s education. Shortly after meeting my wife, my cousin told me he would no longer like to have my financial support and would instead make his own way. I was in favor of this decision, until it became clear that his idea of “making his own way” was to move in with my wife’s uncle (who lives in the same small town as my wife and I) and take up an occupation that’s now causing embarrassing associations for me.

This all happened while I was recuperating from a heart attack and had expressly asked my wife to tell my cousin not to visit us at that time. Of course, I can’t ask her directly, but I’m convinced my wife went behind my back and asked her uncle to invite my cousin to visit him. There have been a lot of other fishy circumstances, such as my wife asking me to rewrite my will and leave everything to my cousin instead of her because “she has more than enough money already, and it stresses her out.”

I’ve just had another consultation with the doctor, who says there’s a possibility I could have another heart attack at any time, so I really want to set my affairs in order and make sure that if I die soon, my cousin won’t marry my wife for the money. I trust my wife and don’t believe she’s having an affair with my cousin, but I don’t trust my cousin as far as I could throw him, not that that would be very far, as I’ve always been more inclined to mental than physical exertion.

This brings me to my question: WIBTA if I extracted a (potential) deathbed promise from my wife not to do anything I wouldn’t want her to do? As a backup, I will be including a codicil in my will stating that she will lose all of my money if she marries my cousin. However, I think the promise will hold more weight with her; as I said, she’s very fond of me (a bit too much so, but that’s another issue).

Edit: No, it doesn’t matter what my wife’s uncle’s business is. It’s not illegal, just embarrassing.

"But you always were wrong: only I can't help loving you."

Are you one of the apparently dozens of people who resolved to read George Eliot's masterpiece in 2026? Do it in good company! We've got a read-along planned for weekdays from April to July. (Apologies for not being sufficiently on the ball to start it in March. It's 2026, things happened, enough about that.)

Newsletter here:

Discord here: