He took a sip of coffee. How does it feel being the wronged husband, the sympathetic victim? Exhausting, but satisfying? I considered the question. Over the past 3 months, I'd become a minor celebrity in our social circle.
The man whose wife had betrayed him, who'd responded with calm dignity, who'd emerged from the wreckage with his integrity intact. People bought me drinks, offered sympathy, treated me like I'd survived something heroic. I don't know about satisfying, I said. Finally, validating maybe. Everyone knows the truth now.
Everyone knows what Rachel did, but it doesn't. I stopped, tried to articulate something I've been feeling. It doesn't make me feel better. It just makes me feel confirmed. Like, yes, I was right to be hurt.
Yes, she was wrong, but that confirmation doesn't heal anything. It just makes the wound official. David nodded slowly. Have you heard from her since the settlement? Once she emailed to ask about splitting up the last of our shared possessions, I told her to keep whatever she wanted that I didn't care anymore.
And did you care? No, they're just things. Furniture and kitchen appliances and photos from a life that doesn't exist anymore. She can have all of it. My breakfast arrived.
Pancakes I'd ordered out of habit and wouldn't finish. I pushed them around the plate while David watched with the patience of someone who'd spent three months watching me not eat. Sandra said the final documents are ready. I said, "The divorce is final. Officially final as of February 1st.
I'm technically single again. " I tried the word out. Felt it sit wrong in my mouth. Single. After 12 years of being half of a couple, I'm just me. Unattached, alone.
You're not alone. You have friends, family, a whole support network of people who I know and I'm grateful. But it's not the same as having a person, someone who knows all your stories, who understands your weird habits, who can finish your sentences. I set down my fork. I lost more than a wife.
David, I lost my witness. The person who could verify my memories, who could confirm that yes, that thing happened. Yes, that that's what we said. Yes, we really did promise forever. Rachel was a liar and a thief.
Not much of a witness, but she was my liar and thief. She was the person I'd built 12 years of history with. And now all that history is what? Contaminated, unreliable. How much of our marriage was real?