"You should celebrate. We should celebrate," her best friend, Bonnie, said, all cheery and upbeat.
"Celebrate? You've got to be joking."
"Hey. Getting divorced isn't the end of the world. It's...it's a new beginning. It's a different door opening when the old one closed. It's..."
"Bonnie? Can you please give it a rest?"
"Sorry. I'm just trying to cheer you up. If you want to mope around and feel sorry for yourself, Kristen, go ahead, but I'm having no part of it."
"It's not so much that I'm having a pity party, I just want to spend some time alone thinking and maybe...taking inventory. That's all."
"Haven't you done enough of that over the last year?" her friend since high school asked.
The truth was, that was pretty much all she'd done since the day her husband, or as of today, her...ex-husband...told her he was bored. That had been just over a year ago, and yet she could see his face and hear every word as though it was yesterday.
"Bored?" she remembered asking, assuming he wanted to take a vacation or maybe go fishing. With any luck, maybe he wanted to try something new in the romance department; an area where things had dropped off from slow to non-existent over the course of a few short months.
After all, he was a doctor who worked a ton of hours, so if he wanted to take a little time off, that was fine, even if he needed to spend it alone. They'd been married for 12 years and never really been apart, so she was willing to be flexible if that was what it took to get back to normal.
"Yes, bored," he repeated.
"Not with work, right?" his wife asked, as the fear inside her grew in intensity.
"What? No! I love my job."
As she realized he meant with her, she felt sick to her stomach. She'd done everything a woman could do to remain physically attractive, and she enjoyed lovemaking as much as he did, and could count on one hand the number of times she'd said 'no' in all the time she'd known him.
But having turned 40 a few months earlier, it was possible he really was referring to her. And the fact that she never thought of herself as beautiful made her even more certain he was.
Kristen Lee-Holmes had often told she was pretty, and she thought that was true, at least to some degree, but rarely had she ever heard anyone tell her she was beautiful in any kind of convincing way.
She felt like she looked a lot like a supporting actress she'd seen on many TV shows but couldn't name until her husband mentioned it once during a movie. The woman's name was Julianne Nicholson. Like the actress, Kristen had a few too many freckles and strawberry blonde hair while her blue eyes and nearly-perfect smile were her best attributes.
She wasn't selling her very fit, nicely-toned body short. She was just a little light 'upstairs' and barely able to fill out a B-cup bra. It was more that as a package, she felt like she was nothing special. At 5' 6" and 115 pounds, she thought she might be a '7' when she looked her best. Even though she was at least as attractive as her 43-year old husband, Gavin, because was a doctor, he could easily date younger, more attractive women whereas she wasn't sure who else would ever be interested in her.
Her insecurities went even deeper when she thought about things like education and work experience. Gavin had a medical degree. She had an associates from a community college. He had an established, prestigious career. She stayed home and had never worked. And worst of all, she wasn't even a mother, so on her worst days, she could do a pretty job of beating herself up.
Until recently, Gavin had always at least made her feel beautiful, her own insecurities aside. So she, in turn, had done everything she could to look her best for him, and now she had that sick feeling that it still hadn't been enough.
"Is it me?" she weakly asked.
"You can't be all that surprised," he replied immediately, doing so rather tersely.
"Wait. You're saying it is me? You're bored with...me?"
He stared at her for several seconds then shook his head.
"I can't believe this is a surprise to you, Kristen," he told her, essentially repeating what he'd just said.
"Gavin. I've done everything humanly possible to look young and attractive to you and be someone you can be proud of. I...I have no idea what it is I've done wrong."
Her husband sighed loudly then said almost patronizingly, "You haven't done anything wrong, Kris. You're great. You're fantastic. Amazing even."
"Then what is it?" she asked, almost begging him to explain. "Is it...being 40?"
"No. Jesus, Kristen! Think for a change!" he told her as though he was talking to a child.
She'd watched him slowly change over the last several months, and a part of the change was the way he spoke to her. Another was the way he was finding excuses not to make love with her, and the reason why was becoming clear. Or at least it was starting to.
"So?" she asked, on the verge of crying.
Doctor Gavin Holmes leaned forward, looked right at his wife, then told her, "You're like...steak. Really good, delicious steak. Filet mignon even. But I don't want to eat steak every day for the rest of my life. I want other...food. I want...variety. I need some excitement in my life before I'm too old to enjoy it, Kris."
Being compared to a piece of meat was the least hurtful thing he said that day. The worst was letting her know that she wasn't enough for him anymore; that she was, in a word—boring.
In addition to staying in superb shape, Kristen was more than willing to try new things in the bedroom even when those things weren't particularly enjoyable for her. But she did them because the love she felt she got in return made it all worth it, and she'd been very much in love with her husband since meeting him a little over 13 years ago when he was a young resident on his way to becoming a very successful OB-GYN.
Kristen hated herself for crying, but she couldn't help it as she asked the proverbial sixty-four thousand dollar question.
"Have there been other women?"
Gavin looked away and she knew. But in keeping with his penchant for brutal honesty he looked right at her and said, "A few."
"How long?" his deeply-shaken wife asked.
"Four months maybe? Give or take."
She grabbed a tissue from the coffee table in front of her as Gavin tried to mitigate the damage.
"Again, you haven't done anything wrong, Kris, don't blame yourself. I just can't stand the thought of never being with anyone else for the rest of my life. It took me a long time to admit it to myself, but I'm just not a one-woman man. I think maybe I wanted to be, but I'm not sure I ever was, and the fact that you were enough to keep me faithful all these years says a lot, and you should feel good about that."
"Gee, thanks," she said, unable to even look at him. "Glad I could be of service."
"So um...I think it's best if I pack my things and leave now," he told her without even acknowledging her hurt.
He stood up then said, "I'll be filing for divorce this week, but I want you to know, I'm not asking for anything more than my half. I just want out."
It took all the inner strength she had not to lash out and say something out of anger, and she came very close to doing so. Instead she sat there in silence listening to him grabbing suitcases and noisily throwing things into them. The sound of the last zipper being closed was audible all the way downstairs and made her flinch just before he came back downstairs himself.
"I'll uh, I'll text you as soon as I know where I'll be staying," he told her with no emotion.
