It seems as if they both know they can’t do better and sadly have given up hope on finding love, and have just resigned in their quest for a happy life together or even with somebody else.
The relationship between Earl and Doreen is without any love it seems, as we don’t see or hear anything about a moment with a remote connection to love. The children did not look up as he walked through the living room.”3 They don’t eat together either.
We don’t hear anything about the children, they’re nameless, shadows parked in front of the TV and this is emphasized by the sentence “He could hear the television before he opened the door to the house. Throughout the story Carver shows how dysfunctional the entire family is and how detached Earl is. When he finally wakes up and sees his wife for what she really is, he sees her through the eyes of two strangers. Earl has been living his life completely blind and detached, so detached that he has no visible love for his wife. The troubles of Doreen and Earl’s relationship are also made clear by this fact, because this clearly shows that if he hasn’t noticed the extra pounds, then he obviously haven’t been looking. It almost seems like he acquires the point of view the two unidentified men have. He then sits quietly and hopes the two men won’t see the connection between him and his wife, and that is also the reason for him not saying goodbye to his wife. I’m busy.”2 Earl is very embarrassed when two men in business suits start talking about his wife’s weight. The total lack of benevolence between husband and wife are clearly seen straight away: “What are you doing here? Doreen said when she saw him sitting there”1 and later she says: “Don’t talk to me now. The story ends abruptly with Doreen telling everybody that he is a salesman. He ends up in the coffee shop again and tries to “sell” her to a man sitting next to him. He continues to pressure her, so she would keep dieting. After this incident she tries to go on a diet but she ends up not eating at all and not looking healthy.
He decides to let Doreen know that she (he) has a problem with her weight. Two men start talking about his wife’s weight and this bothers Earl greatly. Here he is treated like a nuisance by his wife. After a night of drinking as he usually does he goes to see the place where his wife works. “They’re Not Your Husband” is a short story by Raymond Carver, where he writes about the man named Earl Ober, who is an unemployed salesman, with his wife (Doreen) working as a waitress, at a 24-hour coffee shop.
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