I want to be precise, because the version I told my friends at the time was flattering and false. I did not fall in love with a woman. I fell in love with the man I became for ninety minutes at a time.
Around her I was funny. I was decisive. I had opinions about music again. At home I was a guy who had run out of things to say and had decided that was my wife's fault.
I left. I did it badly and I did it quickly, because doing it slowly would have required me to sit in the room with what I was doing. I told myself honesty was kinder. Honesty delivered in one sentence in a driveway is not honesty. It's evacuation.
The new life was good for about a year. Then the ordinary arrived, the way it always does. Bills. Her family. My mood at 6 a.m. She started to see the version of me that isn't performing, and she didn't love that one as automatically, because nobody does. That's what a marriage is for.
The thing that broke me wasn't her. It was watching myself start the same withdrawal. Same silence, same low-grade resentment, same slow drift toward whoever was going to make me feel alive next. Same man. New address.
My kids are polite to me. That's the word. Polite. I earned polite.
I'm not going to pretend I'd have been happy if I stayed. I don't know. What I know is I never actually tried. I diagnosed the marriage from inside my own head and executed the sentence without ever telling her what was wrong.
The stories currently featured in this collection are fictional accounts created to explore common relationship patterns, decisions, and consequences. They are not presented as accounts from identifiable individuals. As real reader stories are submitted with permission, they'll be clearly identified. These fictional accounts are illustrative, not clinical guidance. They are not therapy, legal advice or a substitute for professional help.