My daughter and I sat together, weeping: after twenty years of marriage, my husband had left me… with nothing but a text message.
Annie and I clung to each other in the kitchen, silent as tears traced down our cheeks, unstoppable. We had been abandoned, the two of us—mother and daughter, almost at the same time. Me by my husband, and Annie by her boyfriend. The only difference was that she was only nineteen, and I was forty. But the pain? The same. The bitterness? Just as sharp.
Neither of them had the courage to say it to our faces. Annie got a brief message online: *”Sorry, there’s someone else. Don’t look for me.”* And me? A text on my phone: *”We should divorce. I’ve fallen for another woman.”* After twenty years. After shared homes, holidays, trips, after raising our daughter, caring for him, forgiving his outbursts, enduring his absence. And in the end, all I deserved was a line on a screen.
Two hours later, he turned up as if it were just another errand. No words, no shame. He packed quickly, never once looking my way. Only when Annie rushed out of her room, staring at him as if he were a stranger, did he pause—but he said nothing. Just walked out and shut the door behind him.
Two days before, her boyfriend had vanished too. No explanations. While we were out, he took his things and left. The house became unbearably quiet. We sobbed. Then came the numbness. And then—the anger.
“Mum, let’s change the locks,” Annie said suddenly.
I nodded. We did. We changed more than that. We gathered everything that reminded us of them—clothes, trinkets, photographs—stuffed them into black bags, and threw them out. Kept only what we truly needed. Sold his tools. Gave the extra plates to the neighbours—too much for just the two of us. Fixed the broken loo, scrubbed the house clean, bought flowers for the windowsill. We began to live, just us. No men. No shouting. No resentment.
“Mum, can we get a cat?” Annie asked one evening.
“What about your father’s allergy?”
“All the more reason.”
So we took in a kitten. Black. Clever. With eyes like a panther’s. He became our solace.
I filed for divorce. My ex agreed to move out so I wouldn’t have to split the car. A week later, he was posting photos with his new *love*—a girl barely twenty-three. Three years older than our daughter.
And you know what? I didn’t break. Didn’t collapse. I joined the gym. Changed my hair. Took extra shifts. At work, they praised my energy. Annie started smiling again. Six months later, she went on her first date after the breakup. We lived. We breathed. We began again.
It would’ve stayed that way—if he hadn’t turned up one evening. No knock. Just stood there on the doorstep with a suitcase and a vacant look.
“She left me,” he said. “I want to come home.”
“You don’t have a home here,” I replied, calm, barring the door.
Annie stepped up beside me. “Mum, don’t let him in. Please.”
So I didn’t. Shut the door. He stood on the other side, muttering:
“This is your fault. You didn’t hold on. You grew cold. You—”
And I stood there thinking: after twenty years, you couldn’t even look me in the eye to say you were leaving. Just a text. And now you blame *me* for not taking you back?
Everyone expected me to change my mind.
“You can’t manage alone,” my mother said.
“Don’t throw away your chance,” my ex-mother-in-law insisted.
“At forty, no one will want you,” my sister whispered.
Even at work, colleagues shook their heads:
“But he came back. People make mistakes. You could forgive—”
No. I didn’t forgive. And I won’t.
Because some things *can’t* be forgiven. Not out of spite—but self-respect. I’m not a thing to be discarded, then reclaimed. Not an old shirt. Not a backup plan.
“Are you really willing to erase twenty years over one mistake?” he asked later, calling again.
“I’ll erase them over your cowardice,” I said. “You could’ve left like a man. Instead, you ran like a boy. And you only came back because it didn’t work out with her. That’s not love. That’s fear of being alone.”
Now I know: no ex-husband can undo your worth. No loyalty to the past is worth hurting yourself again.
Annie and I? We live. In quiet. In peace. With a cat. And a new lock on the door.
