I found myself five years deep in this relationshipa strange stretch of time, as if years were rivers flowing backwards. Two of those years we were married, and the three before that were spent together, living beneath the same slanted roof. During our engagement, everything felt faraway, almost imaginary. We only saw one another once each blue moon, maybe every three months. There was even an entire year when our faces met twice, thanks to his curious sort of work. But none of that seemed troubling back then. In fact, the distance felt like perfection: pining for one another, sharing our tears over the telephone, our messages and video calls buoyed by the extraordinary weight of longing. Not once did we argue; neither of us was jealous. We respected each other’s peculiar corners, like cats switching chairs. He’d go off for drinks with his mates, and Id wander to parties; it didnt matter. Hed help me pick my frocks, toonot the outlandish sort, but hed tell me when a dress clung too tight, suggesting something else, something more comfortable. There was no controlling edgehe almost seemed proud of me, and my body, as if I carried the flag for us both. Everything was balanced, tranquil; almost too good for the world.
One December pressed down with unusual heavinessperhaps something to do with the winters grip or the fact we couldnt see each other for Christmas or New Years. It left us both dull and hollow. That was when he suggested I move to his towna place just outside Birmingham, where every garden seemed to sink in the rain. I pondered, consulted the family, and they told me, If it makes you happy, love, off you go. So I gave up my job and slipped into his world.
The first months passed quietly, soft as fog rolling over the common. Adjustment, really: learning each others odditieshow we wake up, how we transform when hungry, what grates and what soothes. Because I now had no job, I watched over the housemaking tea, humming by the window. Life shimmered along.
Year two bloomed even brighter. We moved like a well-rehearsed team, newly besotted, clutching each other close. If he wasnt at work, we were fused, as if wed just recited vows. Everything pulsed with rightness, and I believed wholly that Id made the proper leap.
But in the third year, something seismic shifted. He started to vanish late into the night. We always had our phone locations shareda digital threadbut one day, his vanished, quietly, without comment. Hed come home as dawn swept across the curtainsfive, sometimes six oclockthough he was meant to be clocking in by eight. Hed shower, chew down his toast, and disappear again. There were no more explanations. Arguments became fixtures, like unwelcome ornaments.
There was a day, floating out of time, that clung to me forever. I found makeup on his white shirta brushstroke of foundation, a smudge of lipstick, pressed into collar and sleeve. Not a speck, but a story. I asked him. He told me something that still echoes in my skull: that hed had to search for what he no longer got from me, that Id grown tedious, always fussing about the house and keeping it spotless. He didnt say yes, Ive cheated but he didnt say no, either. The truth bulged, visible but unspoken.
It shattered me, wholly. I cried as if pulling seawater from my chest, the ache nearly physical. I didnt know how to resurrect myself, how to step away from such a wound. So, in a haze, I decided to clamber back to myself. I returned to the gym, where my muscles remembered when I had been strongbefore I moved in with him, before I let go. There, I met a man. We spoke, words falling quietly like rain on a greenhouse. One day he suggested a drink, and I surprised myself by proposing we go to his place. He agreed. The afternoon waited, coiled, and we both understood.
But when I got home, the thought nested in me: This cant be. If I go, Ill be unfaithful too, and maybe he deserves it after all hes done. But no. I wouldnt mirror him. I decided to end things first.
I waited for my husband to come home for lunch. I didnt let him into our bedroom; instead, we sat at the dining table, light fractured on the teacups. I told him the marriage was over, that hed betrayed me, and I didnt want details: who, when, how long. That it ended, here, now. He told me not to make a fuss, that the other woman meant nothing, that she wasnt me, that mending was possible. But I was done.
I didnt tell him about the man from the gym, or the storm that raged inside me. I just said I was leaving. My suitcases crouched by the door already. He asked where I would go, if I had someone waiting. I said it didnt matterId figure something out.
I walked out of that creaky town house, suitcase trailing like an extra limb, and I found the other man. He was startled, seeing me with my life zipped up beside me. I explained: Id just left my husband, and tomorrow Id go back home, to my small city in the north. I just neededjust for tonightto be with someone who was not him. He nodded.
That night spun into something uncommonly intense; whether it was fury, sorrow, or long years stacked one atop the next, I dont know. But it was unlike anything, not even my first days with my former husband.
The next morning, I bought a train ticket£54.70 to Bradfordhaving nowhere else to land, and returned to my parents house. I wanted nothing from the one Id left behind; all feeling fell silent. That was two years ago. Im alone now, working again, renting a small flat painted yellow by the afternoon sun. I regret nothing. I came close to betraying him, but I managed to pause, to end things first, refusing to become the very thing he had become to me.
