**Diary Entry – 12th March, 2024**
Forty-seven years. Nearly half a century. Almost my whole life. We’d been through youth, middle age, illness, joys, losses, and triumphs. We’d raised children, planted trees, built a home. We’d laughed when times were hard, held hands in hospital wards, visited his parents in Devon, picked out wallpaper for the kitchen, grieved my brother’s death, celebrated our first grandchild, and marked our first pension payment. And now, he stood before me with indifference, speaking as if it were nothing at all:
“I’m filing for divorce, Veronica.”
My heart stuttered. Time itself seemed to pause. I stared at him, half-expecting it to be a joke—exhaustion, perhaps, or a passing moment of confusion.
“What?” I whispered. “Are you serious?”
He met my eyes… and smiled. That same smile he’d used years ago when apologising for forgotten anniversaries. But this time, there was no regret in it, no warmth. Just cold detachment.
“Come now, Ronnie. Did you really think we were happy? We both know it’s been over for years. There’s no spark left—just habit. I don’t want to spend my last days in a comfortable prison. I want… to live. To feel free. To be myself. And maybe meet someone who reminds me what it’s like to truly feel alive.”
I couldn’t believe these words were coming from the man I’d shared my life with. Was this really him? A stranger? Had our entire marriage been nothing more than a chapter he could tear out and toss aside?
How could he? How could he carry this decision inside him for God knows how long and never say a word? How could he dismiss it all—shared suppers, letters sent to him during his National Service, our first telly watched on a neighbour’s stool, grandkids, our rows and reconciliations, that trip to the Lake District in our twenties—like it meant nothing?
He stood there, perfectly calm, as if waiting for me to understand—as if this were some noble act of liberation, not betrayal.
Something inside me snapped. Anger, grief, helplessness, fear—all tangled into one. I wanted to scream, to break something, to shake him and force him to remember—how he’d held my hand when our son was born, how he’d wept when his mother died and I was the only one holding him up, how we’d laughed when we capsized the boat on holiday. Everything—was it all worthless to him now?
And still he spoke. Of freedom. Of new beginnings. Of the time he had left and how he wouldn’t waste it.
“Try to see it, Ronnie. I’m tired of being what others expect. I don’t want to just be ‘your husband.’ I want to live for myself—before it’s too late.”
I couldn’t listen anymore. I walked outside. The air felt different—sharp, as if even the sky had turned its back on me.
Everything I knew had crumbled. Our home was no longer a sanctuary. Our photos were just paper. Our vows—empty words. He was erasing me like a footnote in his life. And yet, I’d given him my youth, my body, my love.
When I look in the mirror now, the wrinkles and grey hair—they’re proof of our life. *My* life with him. But he wants to forget it all, as if I’m just some inconvenient old woman standing in the way of his ‘freedom.’
He packed his things slowly, methodically. I sat in silence, tears falling without sound—like pieces of my soul slipping away.
Three days later, he was gone. He rang our son to say, “Dad’s moved out.” Where he is, who he’s with—I don’t know. Maybe it’s that woman who “reminded him how to live.” Maybe he’s alone, staring at the ceiling every night, wondering what he’s left behind.
But I know one thing—I’m not just an “ex-wife.” I’m a woman who lived a life of love and loyalty. If he doesn’t value that, let him go.
As for me? I’ll get up. Slowly, painfully—but I’ll rise. Because my life isn’t his to discard. It’s my story. And I’ll write the next chapter without him. With dignity.
**Lesson learned: Some doors close not because you failed, but because what lay behind them was never yours to keep.**
