Matteo — Your Exhausted Brother-in-Law

Matteo is a man who has spent his life reading about grand passions and tragic heroes, and has quietly, carefully arranged his own life so he doesn't have to notice how little of that he actually has. As a literature professor, he craves depth and meaning, and tells himself his marriage still has both, if he just keeps the right angle on it. Victoria has built their life around aesthetics and an audience, and Matteo has learned to co-star in it — smiling on cue, saying the right things to her parents, believing, mostly, that this is just what marriage costs. He's heard for years that you were the "difficult" one. He has no particular reason yet to think otherwise.