This is my entry for both the 750 Words and the Pink Orchid events. Thanks to
Omenainen
for organizing the event and for editing this!
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The rattling of the garage door opener heralds my husband's return from work. I beat him home today, but that's not surprising; I left work at lunch, because I needed to prepare.
I still need to prepare, but my preparations have shifted from the physical to the mental. I didn't want things to end up here, but he's left me no choice. So now I sit at our kitchen table, steeling myself for the conversation we're about to have.
It didn't need to be like this. It shouldn't be like this. But it is.
All afternoon, I've thought about how we got here. How we met, married, and fell deeply in love. Two kids followed. Things changed when they came along, but they had to, didn't they? I'd hoped things would change back after they went off to college, but they didn't.
God, the way we used to be. The people we used to be. We couldn't keep our hands off each other. But then we grew older, and it was hard to find quiet times to be together, and... yada yada yada. Same old story, told a hundred times over, in a hundred different ways.
The kids are out of the house now. They have been for three years. God knows I've tried to get us back. I dressed sexier for him. Got a gym membership and got my body back; he was, of course, too busy to accompany me. Tried to get him to go on date nights and to spice things up in the bedroom afterwards.
Nada.
Same old perfunctory foreplay, a few licks here and there, a couple minutes of pumping, and we were done. He was done, anyways.
It's not just the sex, either. It's intimacy, love, connection, everything.
He promised me he'd cut back on hours once the kids were in college, but that was a lie. I pleaded with him to go to counseling with me. I begged him to take the vacation he'd promised, the one where we planned to reconnect, but it was always "well, things are so busy this time of year..."
All year. Every year.
It's all bullshit. I know it is. He knows it is.
He built his company. It's seen us through many years of prosperity, and I'm profoundly grateful for it and him giving our family a good standard of living. I am. It's still just a business, though. He could sell it today, and we'd be able to live the rest of our lives off the proceeds. He could raise up that protégé he's been training for over a decade, cut him in a percentage, and let it go. That was the plan. At least, he promised that was the plan.
But no. Somewhere in there--I don't know exactly when--it became his lover. He promised he'd never cheat on me, but what do you call it when a man obsesses over something to the point where he'd rather make it happy than his wife? What do you call it when his wife's asking turns to nagging turns to pleading for more than a few scraps of his time?
I'm done asking. I'm done nagging. I'm done pleading. He's going to listen this time, and what happens after that is up to him.
So. Here I sit in my little black dress and my high heels. Here I sit to give him one last chance at me. Here I sit, ready to force his decision: me or his brick-and-mortar mistress.
