Then much later.
Then sometimes not at all.
At first, he said work was demanding. Then he stopped explaining altogether.
I didn’t question him as much as I should have.
Part of me didn’t want to know the truth.
The Other Woman
I found out about her by accident.
It wasn’t a dramatic discovery—no lipstick on collars, no suspicious phone calls answered in hushed tones.
It was a message.
A single message that lit up his phone while he was in the shower.
“I miss you already ❤️”
I stared at the screen longer than I care to admit. Long enough for the phone to go dark again. Long enough for my heart to start pounding so loudly I thought it might wake the entire building.
When he came out of the shower, I asked him.
I didn’t yell.
I didn’t accuse.
I simply asked, “Who is she?”
He didn’t even try to lie well.
“A friend.”
That was the beginning of the end.
The Distance
After that, everything changed more quickly.
He stopped pretending.
The late nights became normal.
The coldness became constant.
He stopped touching my belly. Stopped asking about the baby. Stopped asking about me.
I remember one evening, standing in the kitchen, struggling to reach something on a high shelf. My balance was off, my body heavy and unfamiliar.
“Can you help me?” I asked.
He didn’t even look up from his phone.
“Do it yourself.”
That was when I realized I was already alone.
The Divorce
He didn’t drag it out.
There were no attempts at reconciliation, no conversations about counseling, no effort to fix what was broken.
One evening, he sat across from me at the dining table and said, “I want a divorce.”
Just like that.
No hesitation.
