Nightbitch

There are clearly, at the novel’s start, inequalities in the relationship between Nightbitch and her husband. As Nightbitch says—“she had been responsible for putting the boy to sleep nearly every night since he was born” (129). When her husband is home, she still “performed night-nights on Friday, because he was tired” (129).

This power imbalance extends beyond issues of sleep and childcare. While her husband gives himself free time to play videos games and relax when he gets home, Nightbitch does not have the same privilege. At times “she would have liked to leave the house altogether and go to the coffee shop” or “shut herself in the guest room” (55). She bows to her husband’s assessment that this would be “inconvenient” for the family, so stays put. As Nightbitch says, “they deferred to his judgment” on nearly everything (5). This includes not only who puts the child to sleep but what to watch on TV and Nightbitch’s own physical state, in terms of what the growth on her back means.

Nightbitch suggests that inequity is not peculiar to her own marriage. It is also not the product of unfortunate circumstances, namely that her husband is away working most of the week.