I spent much of Sunday binge watching Three Women on Starz. I was prompted to watch the show after seeing lots of ads show up on my social media while scrolling. In one of the ads a woman was talking about how her husband hadn’t touched her in almost three months. I was drawn in and intrigued as she shared her story with so much pain behind her eyes. I needed to know more about her story.
Apparently, there is a book which I have never read and I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. Based on the non-fiction work of Lisa Taddeo, the series explores the lives of three different women as they navigate the complexities of desire, love, trauma and personal identity. As much as the entire show resonated with me deeply, it was Lina’s story—the woman in the ad all over social media—that truly struck a personal chord. Her journey is a raw, honest portrayal of vulnerability, yearning, and the messy, sometimes painful pursuit of connection and fulfillment. Watching Lina’s narrative unfold, I felt as though parts of my own life were being played out on screen.
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To fully explain why Lina’s character resonates with me, it’s important to summarize the premise of Three Women. The series follows three central characters: Maggie, a young woman whose relationship with a high school teacher has deeply affected her life; Sloane, a successful businesswoman who carefully manages an open marriage; and Lina, a suburban mother of two who is starved for affection and intimacy in a loveless marriage.
While each one of these women’s stories is powerful and profound, I found myself especially drawn to Lina. Her emotional experience felt deeply relatable in ways that I hadn’t anticipated. I have never seen a character quite like Lina whose life mirrored mine in so many ways. Lina’s journey helped me confront my own unresolved feelings about love, intimacy, and self-worth, making the show feel intensely personal.
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Lina’s story begins with her feeling trapped in a marriage devoid of affection. Her husband, Ed, is an emotionally distant and clueless man who shows little interest in physical intimacy. After years of living in a tolerable level of permanent unhappiness, Lina reaches a breaking point and begins to crave something more—something that makes her feel alive again.
In addition to the deep emotional pain, Lina is also dealing with the physical pain of fibromyalgia—like me—and endometriosis. Lina discovers this at a visit with a rather eccentric doctor who recommends medication, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and a good orgasm. Oh how I can relate!
The stress of existing in a loveless marriage breeds resentment and anger, stress factors that contribute to a greater likelihood of chronic illnesses. It is no wonder that women experience a higher prevalence of chronic illnesses and why they initiate most divorces.
One of the rather more intense scenes is when Lina has to call for emergency services from what she thinks may be a heart attack, while caring for her two young boys. Ed returns home, only to downplay the events of what happened and tells Lina that her pain is all in her head . Not only is her emotional pain being disregarded, but her physical pain is being trivialized in a way that furthers the divide between her and her husband. This is the point I think Lina is pushed over the edge and she is willing to lose everything.
Watching Lina grapple with these feelings was incredibly emotional for me. It was as though she was voicing thoughts I had struggled to come to terms with in my own past life. At some point, many of us have felt unfulfilled in relationships, whether romantic or otherwise. We’ve sought connection and affection, only to be met with indifference or rejection. Lina’s yearning for touch, for passion, for a connection that makes her feel desired, loved and alive is a peek into the suffering of women globally.
Her vulnerability is palpable to the point that I couldn’t even fault her for the questionable decisions she makes. She is achingly real. That authenticity is what draws you into Lina’s unstable and almost juvenile world. Her desperation to feel loved, even if fleeting, is truly an act of self preservation.
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Lina’s affair with Aidan, her high school sweetheart and what if guy is a pivotal part of her story. This is where things get interesting. It is an affair born not out of malice, but out of a desperate need to reclaim a sense of intimacy and self-worth that has long been absent from her life. Embarking on the affair felt like both an act of empowerment and destruction. On one hand, she is finally feeling desired again—she feels alive in a way she hasn’t in years. On the other hand, she is aware that the relationship is precarious, built on the shaky ground of nostalgia and fantasy.
Lina is locked in a juvenile state of trauma that in some ways has stunted her emotional growth. A woman in a loveless marriage can sometimes feel like she has nothing to lose and so much to gain by emotionally and physically.
What kind of husband deems it acceptable to ignore the intimate needs of his wife?
The type who is willing to lose her. She had been in such a state of unhappiness that she just finally broke free. She would prefer to ask for forgiveness later than permission now.
This tension between Lina’s need for fulfillment and the potentially damaging consequences of her actions really hit home. We’ve all experienced moments where we’ve made decisions, knowing they weren’t entirely healthy or sustainable, but feeling like they were necessary for our emotional survival. She sacrificed everything on the grounds of the relationship cemetery called Facebook when she decided to reconnect with her old flame.
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The societal judgment she faces is somewhere she has been before. As she seeks out intimacy and love beyond her marriage, she is met with criticism, not just from those around her but from herself. She grapples with feelings of guilt and shame for wanting more than what her marriage can provide.
In many ways, Lina’s story is a commentary on the way society often views women who are unfulfilled in their relationships, especially mothers, internalized shame and the suppression of sexual desire. There’s an unspoken expectation that women should be fulfilled by the responsibility of partnership, motherhood and having their socio-economic needs met. This kind of thinking is restrictive and prioritizes male pleasure in a way that leave many dissatisfied housewives feeling that it is taboo to desire intimacy more than their partner. This is not a space where any woman should exist.
Lina is the personification of the internal conflict that women go through when they're left to fend for themselves in a way that requires true partnership. She tried building connection, but Ed refused to listen constructively. Is that to say that I excuse Lina cheating on her husband? Not one bit, but I understand the level of pain she was in that lead her there. At some point, something has to give, because living in an unfulfilled marriage is emotional purgatory.
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By the end of Three Women, Lina is far from having all the answers—after all, both she and Aidan are married. She’s still searching for a balance between her needs and her responsibilities, between love and self-respect. But what stands out to me most about her story is her growth. Lina’s journey is one of self-discovery, of learning that she is worthy of love and affection, even if that love doesn’t come in the way she originally imagined. She comes to realize that she doesn’t need to settle for a life of emotional and physical deprivation nor does she have to be a married man’s secret.
In spite of it all, Lina gives women the permission to acknowledge their own desires and the emotional complexity. She liberates us from the need to center male desire in a way that can be unhealthy inside and outside of a relationship. The overall prize is agency over our minds and bodies and the ability to feel content in the decisions we make.
Photo of Lina in a red dress JoJo Whilden/SHOWTIME
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