Because from where I'm sitting, I don't think you really understand the magnitude of this. You violated our marriage vows. You exposed me to health risks without my consent. You stole from our savings. You lied to our friends and family.
You made me doubt my own sanity when I started suspecting something was wrong. You gaslit me, Rachel, for 6 months. You made me feel crazy for noticing that something was off. She was sobbing now, her whole body shaking. What do you want from me?
I've apologized. I've admitted everything. What more can I do? I opened the third folder. Inside was a single document, a print out of an email Marcus had sent to a mutual friend dated 3 weeks ago detailing his relationship with my wife and his plans for their future together.
Plans that included her leaving me, moving in with him, starting a life together. Plans she'd apparently agreed to. Did you tell him you'd leave me? I asked quietly. She looked at the email and something in her face crumpled.
We talked about it. We fantasized about it, but I never I was never going to actually accept you were in the Bahamas with him for 2 weeks, Rachel. Two weeks that you could have used to tell me the truth to end our marriage honestly to give me the dignity of a choice. Instead, you came home, kissed me, told me you missed me, and acted like everything was normal. I was confused.
I didn't know what I wanted. You knew exactly what you wanted. You wanted both. You wanted the security and history and home we'd built together. And you wanted the excitement and passion of something new.
You wanted to have your cake and it too. The vulgarity made her flinch. But I didn't care. The problem is that's not how life works. That's not how marriage works.
You don't get to destroy something and then be surprised when it breaks. She sat there surrounded by evidence of her betrayal, looking smaller and younger than I'd ever seen her. What happens now? I pulled out one more document from my jacket pocket. A petition for divorce that my lawyer had drawn up yesterday.
I slid it across the table. You're going to sign this. It's a no fault divorce, which is more generous than you deserve. But I'm not interested in dragging this through courts. It splits our assets 50/50, which again is more than fair given that you stole from our savings to fund your affair.
It includes a statement that you acknowledge the infidelity and wave any claim to alimony or spousal support. She stared at the document. And if I don't sign, then I file for an atfall divorce. I submit all of this evidence to the court. I subpoena Marcus, your colleagues, everyone who knew or suspected what was happening.
I make this as public and painful as possible. I let a judge decide how to divide our assets, and I guarantee you it won't be 50/50. I lean forward. But more than that, Rachel, I tell everyone the truth, not your sanitized version where you were confused and made mistakes. The real truth documented and proven.
I let our friends and family see exactly who you are and what you did. That's blackmail. That's consequences. You want to move forward with Marcus? Fine.
Sign the papers and in 6 months you'll be free to do whatever you want, but you don't get to do it on my dime or with my reputation. You don't get to paint yourself as the victim of a bad marriage when you're the one who destroyed a good one. She picked up a pen with a shaking hand. I really did love you. I still do.
Then you have a funny way of showing it. She signed four places, her signature getting messier each time, her tears smudging the ink. When she was done, she pushed the papers back to me. I'll be out of the house completely by next week, she said. I'll just take my clothes and personal things.
You can have everything else. I don't want everything else. I want to split things fairly. This isn't about punishing you, Rachel. It's about ending this, honestly.
She stood up, looked around the dining room like she was seeing it for the last time. For what it's worth, I really am sorry. You deserved better than this. Better than me? Yeah, I said.
I did. She walked to the door, paused with her hand on the knob. The question yesterday about the illness. There really isn't one. No, go then.
Why? Because I needed you to feel what I felt when I found out. The fear, the uncertainty, the sick dread of knowing something terrible had happened. And not knowing how bad it would be. I needed you to run to a doctor and beg for tests and sit in a waiting room imagining the worst.
Because that's what I did, Rachel. When I found out about you and Marcus, I went to a clinic and got tested for every STD they offer because you'd been sleeping with me and him and I had no idea what I've been exposed to. I met her eyes. I wanted you to feel that just for a few hours just to understand. She pulled it.
Did you? Were you? I'm clean, negative for everything. But I had to live with that fear for a week while I waited for results. And you should know what that feels like.
You should carry that weight, even if just for a moment. She nodded slowly, open the door, walked out. This time, I knew it was for the last time as my wife. Next time she'd come back, it would be to pack boxes, to sort through the debris of our life together, to figure out who got the coffee maker and who got the photos from our honeymoon. But that would be later.
That would be the mechanical practical end of things. This this had been the emotional end, the moment where our marriage officially died, documented and divided and done. I sat alone at the dining room table, surrounded by folders of evidence, holding divorce papers with her signature still wet, and I felt nothing. Not relief, not satisfaction, not even grief, just emptiness, just the hollow echo of what used to be. My phone buzzed.