Exiled to the Couch: Difference between revisions

== [[Literature]] ==

* Upheld, complete with double standard, in the [[Prince Roger]] novel ''We Few'', by [[John Ringo]]. Prince Roger has the rules explained to him by his fiancee:

'''Roger:''' (plaintively) Do I get a pillow? }}

 

* Played with on ''[[Medium]]''. Dad starts sleeping on the couch and the middle daughter tells her younger sister their parents are going to get divorced "because that's what happened to [her friend's] dad and then he took her to Disneyworld!" Actually, it was just an experiment to see if mom's habit of waking up from [[Nightmare Dreams|horrific psychic dreams]] in the wee hours of the morning was cutting into dad's sleep (it wasn't, surprisingly enough).

* Daphne used this against Niles on ''[[Frasier]]'' when their lives get complicated after {{spoiler|Maris murdered her lover}}.

'''Daphne:''' The hell I can't. If ''you'' hadn't had lunch with her then ''we'' wouldn't have been dragged into this mess, and ''you'' wouldn't be sleeping alone on the couch tonight. But you did, and we were, so you are. }}

** Later on though he calls her on it, telling her she hasn't exactly been a wonderful support during what was, for him, a very difficult time.

* Used on ''[[Mad Men]]'', after Betty catches Don cheating on her.

* Averted by ''[[The X-Files]]'''s Fox Mulder, who sleeps on the couch all the time, despite having no wife or significant other to exile him. It's a [[Fanon]] running gag that he doesn't have a bedroom. It was lampshaded twice by characters impersonating Mulder. In "Small Potatoes":

** And in "Dreamland", in which Morris Fletcher goes so far as to clear out Mulder's bedroom, buy a bed, and put mirrors on the ceiling above it.

** And given that nobody remembers Fletcher's purchases, it comes as quite a surprise to Scully that Mulder is no longer sleeping on his couch. In "Monday":

* Played with in ''[[The Dick Van Dyke Show]]'' episode "Give Me Your Walls". Rob and Laura are annoyed by a painter who has been working on their living room for a long time. Rob swears that he will tell him to get out of their house soon, and if he doesn't, he himself vows to sleep on the couch. Laura walks right up to him and says that he had better get her out. (Oddly, Rob and Laura are always seen in separate beds.)

* Mr. Bennett spends most of ''[[Lost in Austen]]'' having exiled himself to the library, after Mrs. Bennett allows Jane to marry Mrs. Collins. This only ends after {{spoiler|she tells off Lady Catherine at the climax of the series.}}