So, I resolved to get out.
To walk away.
To make a change before I lost one more single second of my life to a man who couldn’t even be bothered to make it home for dinner most nights, or ask about my day on the rare evenings he did, or summon the effort to give me an occasional orgasm during our increasingly infrequent encounters between the sheets.
Did I say infrequent?
I meant nonexistent.
Seriously, when you’re binge-watchingMad Menand start relating on a fundamental level to repressed 1950s housewives like Betty Draper… you know things aren’t exactly going well.
Hence: the divorce papers.
Christmas Eve, while Paul was busy working — becauseof coursehe didn’t take the holiday off, don’t be absurd! — I left them under the tree with a big red bow on top and tucked myself in bed with an exceptionally good bottle of Syrah that Paul’s parents gave us as an engagement gift.
To drink on your ten-year anniversary.
I drained that bottle, every damn sip, having a solo celebration to mark an altogether different sort of juncture — ten years wasted on a man who never cared about me as anything but a possession. Just another antique piece of furniture in his immaculate home. An article of clothing in his pristine closet. An object to stake ownership over, not to cherish until death did us part.
When I awoke on Christmas morning — my head spinning from a hangover rivaling the one I experienced following my friend Phoebe’s bachelorette party last month — I fully expected to find the papers signed, dated, and waiting for me on the gleaming granite kitchen countertops we had specially imported from Morocco.
They weren’t.
Instead, I found something else waiting for me.Paul. And the pure rage contorting his handsome features as his feet slowly closed the space between us and his hands not-so-slowly tore my papers clean in half… well, that was as surprising as it was terrifying.
Suffice to say, it never once crossed my mind that Paul wouldn’t be quite so keen on the idea of divorce. I thought he’d be relieved to be rid of me. After all,Iwasn’t the one who avoided coming home every night.Iwasn’t the one who walked through the door on more than one occasion with ill-concealed lipstick stains on his collar.Iwasn’t the one who gave up trying to make anything resembling an effort starting shortly after our second wedding anniversary and worsening with each progressive year.
And yet, when it finally came down to it, Paul was surprisingly resistant. So resistant, in fact, he shattered a $300 lamp against a wall, put his fist through the foyer mirror, and screamed loud enough that the next door neighbors called the police.
Let me tell you: nothing says Christmas quite like watching your enraged husband being tasered, cuffed, and loaded into the back of a squad car while the entire block watches from their front windows, hot cocoa in hand.
Bring on the carolers!
In the months since, Paul has stayed away. Physically, at least. (The restraining order I filed ensures that small detail.) Unfortunately, a legal document does very little to block him from contacting me via phone, email, voicemail… candy gram, flower delivery, edible arrangement…
You name it, he’s tried it.
Despite the fact that I changed both my phone number and my locks… that I have thrown out so many flowers Mother Nature has put me on some kind of hit list… that I have chucked so many chocolates in the garbage Godiva has issued a warrant for my arrest… that I have an entire box of jewelry I’ll never wear, including a gaudy Byzantine bracelet and a bejeweled golden egg, the exact purpose of which I’ve never been able to figure out…
He refuses to see reason.
He won’t even entertain theideaof a divorce — no matter how many times I have served him with papers via courier. No matter that we’re no longer living under the same roof or sharing any facet of each other’s lives. (Besides, of course, a last name.)
Short of taking him to court for a messy public trial and forcing a judge to grant my freedom, I’m not exactly sure how to proceed from this point. So, for the time being, I’ve been letting things simmer on the back burner. Hoping he’ll eventually come to his senses and change his mind about this whole ‘marriage is forever, I’ll never let you go, you’re mine until the last breath leaves my body’crap he started spouting on Christmas.
Don’t worry — I’m not living under any sort of delusion that he’s trying to win me back because he’s desperately in love with me. For Paul, this is merely a point of pride.
I am his perfect wife, who lives in his perfect house, on the perfect street in the perfect suburb. I host posh dinner parties for his co-workers. I mix a flawless gin martini. I attend business functions on his arm wearing gorgeous dresses he buys for me. I am the most important chess piece on the carefully calculated board that is his life.
Giving me up might meanlosingthat game. Losing face in his business circles. Losing the respect of his family and friends. And if there’s one thing the man I married can’t stand…
It’s losing.
I don’t know where he’s been staying or what he’s been up to since I cut off communication. Frankly, it’s not my concern anymore. Or… it wasn’t until today, when two large thugs showed up at my yoga studio looking for Mrs. Paul Hunt.
I’m not sure what, exactly, he’s gotten himself into that brought those men to my doorstep. All I do know is… I’m wishing like hell he’d signed those damn papers. If he had,no onewould be looking for Mrs. Shelby Hunt.
They couldn’t.