Iran is ruining Avi’s love life, and if that sounds like an overstatement, it’s only because you haven’t tried to romance someone who keeps one ear tuned for the Home Front Command alert like it’s the chorus of a particularly rude Eurovision entry.

Avi is 43. He lives in Holon, which is the kind of place that usually concerns itself with traffic circles, school WhatsApp groups, and whether the bakery on the corner has rugelach left by Friday afternoon. He has two kids, Daniel and Simona aged 12 and 10, and a beautiful wife called Maayan, whose age shall not be mentioned because, in a marriage, some facts are like glass shelves. Technically useful. Best left untested.

Four weeks into the war, Avi discovered a new strategic reality. Maayan will not, under any circumstances, succumb to what he calls “the natural charms of her husband.” These charms include a slightly heroic willingness to take out the trash, a tender way of saying “I’ll do it” when the Wi-Fi drops, and the ancient seductive ritual of bringing home the right oat milk without being asked.

But Maayan is afraid of being caught mid-act by a ballistic rocket attack.

Not “after,” not “before,” not “adjacent to,” not “nearby.” Mid-act. The fear is very specific. It’s the kind of fear that has a storyboard. It has camera angles. It has Avi, at his most human and least dignified, frozen like a startled meerkat, while a siren wails and the building does that tiny shudder that turns every conversation into a prayer. Nothing kills a mood like a reminder that your ceiling might decide to participate.

Now, some people respond to danger by clinging to pleasure. “Life is short,” they say, and then they light candles, put on music, and make wildly optimistic decisions about lingerie. Avi was hoping Maayan would be one of those people. Instead, she is a person who thinks, quite rationally, “If we start now, we might have to stop in 90 seconds, and then what? Sprint to the safe room in socks? With… everything happening? No.”

In the safe room, there is no romance. There is only the smell of old paint, a stack of board games missing crucial pieces, and that one folding chair that pinches your thighs like it holds a personal grudge. Avi’s idea of intimacy is not “Twister with a flashlight and two anxious children asking if the dog is okay.”

So yes, Iran is ruining Avi’s marital relations. Not personally, of course. There is no Iranian official sitting in Tehran, twirling a moustache and saying, “Gentlemen, we strike at dawn, and also at Avi’s foreplay.” But it does feel personal when your marriage gets dragged into geopolitics like a reluctant reservist.

It’s always the same with these big historical forces. They don’t just smash bridges and disrupt supply chains. They wander into your bedroom, look around like a tax inspector, and declare the atmosphere “not conducive.”

Avi tries to explain this to friends, but everyone is busy being heroic in their own way. One guy is volunteering, one guy is driving supplies, one guy is arguing with an algorithm about whether his insurance covers “war-related emotional fatigue.” Avi is sitting there thinking ‘I, too, am suffering. I am a civilian casualty of romance’.

And he can’t even complain properly, because the moment he opens his mouth, the moral ledger appears. “People have it worse,” it whispers. Which is true. But suffering is not a competition where the grand prize is silence. Avi isn’t asking for a medal. He’s asking for a Wednesday night that doesn’t require a tactical briefing.

Maayan’s fear isn’t melodrama. It’s a practical fear dressed up as mood-killer chic. She has done the math. She knows how quickly an alert can turn from “something far away” to “why is my heart in my throat.” She knows the sound of Daniel pretending he’s fine while gripping his phone. She knows Simona’s eyes, too alert for a 10-year-old. She knows that the brain does not switch from “protect the children” to “kiss me” just because Avi has raised an eyebrow in what he believes is a devastatingly suave manner.

Avi keeps offering solutions like a man trying to negotiate with weather. “We can keep the door unlocked,” he suggests, as if romance is improved by the faint possibility of two kids barging in to ask where the charger is. “We can be… quick,” he says, which is not a strategy so much as a confession. “We can do it in the safe room,” he proposes once, and Maayan looks at him the way you look at someone who has just suggested a picnic inside a refrigerator.

At some point, Avi tries to reclaim the narrative. He buys something that promises to be calming. He puts on music. He cleans the bedroom. He even changes the sheets, which is the domestic equivalent of sending peace talks to Geneva. Maayan walks in, notices the fresh sheets, pauses, and says, “Nice,” in a tone that means, “I appreciate this the way I appreciate a fire extinguisher. Good to have. I hope we don’t use it today.”

The tragedy, and it is a tragedy in the classical sense, is that Avi’s needs are not complicated. He is, as he would like history to record, a simple man with few basic needs. One of those needs is intimacy. Another is not feeling like his libido is an act of treason against reality. He wants the world to stop interrupting him in the one arena where he can pretend it’s still normal.

But Iran, with its long reach and longer headlines, has helped turn “normal” into a short-lived fantasy, like believing the supermarket will have the exact hummus you like. Avi can’t even fantasize without factoring in a siren. That’s where the war really wins. Not in the big speeches. In the small private spaces where people used to be silly and now they are careful.

If you want to understand modern conflict, don’t start with maps. Start with a couple in Holon doing mental calculations: How far is the safe room? Are the kids asleep? Is the phone charged? If the alert goes off, will we have time to pull on pants without breaking an ankle? That’s the front line nobody puts on the news.

Avi will survive. Maayan will, too. They’ll get through the nights, the alerts, the endless low-grade tension that makes even a quiet apartment feel like it’s holding its breath. But somewhere in the middle of it all, a man is staring at a freshly made bed like it’s a diplomatic initiative, thinking, ‘I did everything right. I folded the laundry. I bought the oat milk. I am not asking for the moon’.

And Iran, indirectly, has still managed to veto the motion.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)