Sitting with my daughter, crying. We were dumped. Both of us. Two days apart. Her boyfriend, my husband. Both cowards. Didn’t even have the guts to say it to my face. I texted my daughter on social media. I got a text message. A text message! After 20 years of marriage. A pathetic text message. I was not even worthy of a conversation.
My husband showed up two hours after the text message. He packed his things. He left. Daughter macho hid two days earlier, when no one was home. We howled for an hour. Then we decided what to do.
– Change the locks. My asshole took the keys with him. Along with his stuff.
I wondered. My daughter’s right. Changed.
– Mom, can we throw everything away? And Dad’s, and what my dickhead didn’t take?
We did. We put it in bags. We threw it away. We’ve gone through all the dishes. Don’t need a ton of pots and pans for two. Gave away the surplus to the neighbors. Sold my husband’s tools. All in bulk. We taped the toilet seat to the toilet bowl. As a sign of freedom. In the evenings we watched movies. We ate ice cream. We made salads. We went for walks. It was quiet at home. The apartment bills were a pleasant surprise. The toilet was always free. We spent three times less on groceries. We got a cat. My husband had allergies.
The first grief went away. Abandoned and abandoned. We have to move on. Daughter’s still young. She’s only nineteen. I’m forty. She’s just starting her life, too. She filed for divorce. My husband checked out of my apartment in exchange for a promise not to share his car. He bragged about his lady of the heart. Who’s only three years older than our daughter. Survived. No family, no family. It happens.
Time helped. Six months later my daughter went on a date. I was working. I was divorced. Stopped thinking about my ex-husband. Fitness. Good hairdresser. Bosses appreciated the zeal at work. Life went uphill. Husband came back. And six months since the official divorce has not passed. He came back with his things. The young maiden didn’t appreciate the 40-year-old man.
That’s how it is with us. Husband left? It’s the wife’s fault. She didn’t pay attention. Husband’s fault… Wife’s fault. She didn’t give him enough. Drinking? Beats you? Doesn’t work? Wife’s fault. You let her in. She didn’t let me in. Why did she let him in? My daughter supported me, she doesn’t want to know my father, the traitor. But everyone around me is waiting for me to come to my senses. My mother is waiting. She says I can’t go alone. My mother-in-law’s waiting. She says if I miss my chance, he’ll find someone else. My sister’s waiting. She says, who needs me at forty? You’re out? What’s the big deal! Betrayed? He realized it! He’s back! I should be happy! But I’m not happy.
– You are not strangers to each other! – All together. Even colleagues.
They are wrong. We are strangers. We are divorced. There’s no such thing as ex-children. And ex-husbands are common.
– Are you willing to forget all twenty years of marriage because of a mistake? – The ex-husband wonders.
I am. I could forgive an unpublicized affair. But to learn of the impending divorce from a text message: “We must divorce, fell in love with another” – no. I will not forgive. I didn’t have the courage to sit down and talk. Looking me in the eye. So and so. And he treated me… like a girl. After 20 years of marriage. No. I won’t forgive him.
