Two Husbandless Years

Two years ago today, I discovered my husband was having an affair.

No need to retell that story. Even if you have never heard it before, you know how it goes: lying, gaslighting, manipulation—a tired wife reaching gothic-horror levels of paranoia before finally taking matters into her own hands and searching the scoundrel-husband’s Apple Watch messages. She discovers she is not insane after all, spends some months in a weird manic state, rebuilds her life, and becomes hotter and cooler and happier than ever before.

The end! Except, obviously, it isn’t.

While reflecting on these last two years, I decided to reread the post I wrote last year celebrating one year of separation from my ex-spouse. I was struck by how many of the “firsts” I wrote about then have quietly become routine. I wrote about how I started swimming again. Now I swim once a week. I took my first dance class since 2018. Now I take as many dance classes as my schedule will allow. I went to my first-ever Liberty game, and now I’m a half-season ticket holder. These fun, exciting little things that made my first year feel so new have become pillars of the life I’m making. Or at least pillars of how I choose to spend my time. Things that once felt like special treats and occasions have integrated themselves into my ordinary routines, and that is a treat in itself.

I guess this is a fairly naïve realization, but I am still a little shocked that there was no big cosmic retribution for being cheated on. I was not rewarded with meeting the love of my life, or becoming rich, or having all my dreams come true. Life really never does owe you anything. It’s kind of funny that deep down, I thought it did. This year, I entered and exited a fraught relationship. I am currently super broke. I am still trying to get some projects off the ground, which feels impossible at times. Sometimes when I’m struggling I want to scream at the sky, “DON’T YOU KNOW WHAT I’VE BEEN THROUGH!!!!????” But no one is up there.

That’s probably for the best. I don’t need another man telling me what to do.

In the first year, I kind of saw myself as Kirby when he sucks up everything around him with his big mouth: I slurped up everything. Validation, attention, pity, compliments, reassurance. I wanted proof, constantly, that I was desirable and interesting and right and worth loving. Sometimes I still like those things. Sometimes I still need them. But I don’t have quite so voracious an appetite.

I crowdsource for opinions less. I have stronger convictions and higher standards. I am able to identify what I want more easily, and release the things I don’t need with less guilt. I trust my own taste more. I trust my own judgment more. I don’t feel quite so desperate to have someone else tell me what something means before I allow myself to decide what it means to me. In the scheme of everything, those seem like little changes, but they make the biggest impact.

Two years out, life is chugging along. And despite all the challenges, I am still happier than I was in my marriage because even when things are hard, they’re mine. My problems belong to me. The mess in the kitchen belongs to me. My time belongs to me. My future belongs to me. Things aren’t being co-opted by a narcissist. I don’t need to shove all my dreams and thoughts and feelings to the side to make space for someone else’s ever-inflating ego.

When you stop spending all your time preparing meals for a weak man’s bottomless appetite for attention, you can start to cook for yourself. And then you have to do the dishes because you don’t have a husband to split the chores with anymore.

There is always a catch.

Some of my days are super romantic: solo shopping at the farmers market in the city I love, wearing some billowy garment. Quietly reading in the park while snacking on strawberries like some sort of storybook rabbit. Getting all dressed up to meet a friend for a casual lunch. Writing in coffee shops. Flirting with strangers. Attending parties. Making new friends. Being unencumbered makes you mobile. You can say yes to last-minute trips and last-minute plans. You can decide on a Tuesday afternoon that you want to go somewhere on Wednesday and simply go. I still say yes to basically everything. That’s all very exciting!

But most days are not as exciting. A lot of my time is spent working my day job, doing chores, trying to get to bed at a reasonable hour. Not a bad life, but very life-y. And I think that is part of what I am learning to appreciate. Freedom is not always a glamorous dress in the farmers market. Sometimes it is doing your laundry. Sometimes it is sitting alone on your couch eating leftovers. Sometimes it is making a decision without having to consider whether someone else will be annoyed by it. Sometimes it is just having a bad day that belongs entirely to you.

When things get stormy in my mind, I think about whether I will ever know what it feels like to be loved again. Romantically, I mean. I wonder if it is possible for someone to both know me truly and love me truly. Yet to be seen! I think about how I want someone to split rent with, and how that is not a good reason to date. If money weren’t a factor, would I even want a partner? Or would it just be me in my lair with my dolls and my projects? That sounds nice too.

Fuck love, I want a patron.

On the topic of dating, I am much more discerning now. A little more closed off than I was at this time last year. More exhausted, especially by men. I spent my first single year out all the time. This year, I am home more. I am more careful with my energy, more inclined to rest after a year of going as fast as I possibly could. I think about my nervous system a lot. This year I learned that if you don’t take care of it, your body will eventually force you to take care of it through illness or injury. There are limits to how long you can outrun yourself.

Last year I was skimming the surface of so many things. I loved being a first-timer. There was something intoxicating about constantly having a new experience, about proving to myself that I could still become someone new. This year I went deeper. I’m still a beginner, but I’m not so green. Maybe that is what the second year is: less about proving that you can survive and more about figuring out what you actually want to build now that you have survived.

I’ll be 40 in five years. Although aging at large doesn’t freak me out, that number does. I think this is because I spent a lifetime using it somewhat derogatorily. Any time you wanted someone to feel washed up, past their prime, you would whine, They’re like 40. I think about my relatives who I remember turning 40. They seemed like real adults. People with houses and careers and children and furniture and retirement accounts and some kind of coherent narrative about how they got there.

I am a little freaked out by how little I have. How little I’ve done. How little I have to show. Yes, all of this is made up. Fake. Societally imposed. A completely arbitrary set of milestones that we’ve collectively decided should signify a successful life. But damn, I guess it worked, because I am scared!

And maybe that is another thing I am learning in this second year: just because I escaped one story doesn’t mean I am free of all of them. There are still stories I have to unlearn. There is still the voice that tells me I am behind. That I should have more by now. That I should know what I’m doing. That I should be settled. That I should have found the person, built the thing, figured out the money, figured out the career, figured out the rest of my life.

But two years ago, my entire life was rearranged at the careless hands of someone I loved and trusted the most. I thought the aftermath would be about rebuilding the life I had lost. It turns out it has been about discovering how little of my life is actually finished. And maybe this is the part I didn’t understand then: a good life is not necessarily an easy life. An easy life would be nice. I would actually love one! I would love to have more money and fewer problems and someone to split the rent with. I would love to know exactly what I am doing and where I am going. I would love to have a romantic partner who knows me truly and loves me truly.

But I don’t want an easy life badly enough to give up my own life for it. I don’t want security if the price is self-abandonment. I don’t want companionship if I have to make myself smaller to keep it. I don’t want to be comfortable inside a life that doesn’t feel like mine.

The life I have now is not perfect. It is not particularly financially secure. It is sometimes lonely. There are dishes. There are unanswered emails. There are projects that refuse to get off the ground. There are days when I wonder if I am literally cursed and need to see a bruja to rub an egg on me. But it is mine.

I get to decide what happens next. I get to change my mind. I get to try things. I get to waste an afternoon. I get to fall in love or not. I get to make bad choices. I get to make good choices. I get to fill my calendar with dance classes and basketball games and friends and farmers markets and, increasingly, naps. I get to make a life that fits me.

I don’t know what the next year will look like. I don’t know if I will fall in love. I don’t know if I will make more money. I don’t know if the projects I am trying to get off the ground will get off the ground. I don’t know what 40 will look like, or whether I will feel more like a “real adult” by then.

But I do know that two years ago I thought my life had been ruined. And now I am sitting here, in a life that is still unfinished, still financially precarious, still occasionally lonely, still full of uncertainty—and somehow, miraculously, it is mine.

I used to think being lucky meant getting the life you wanted.

Now I think maybe it means getting to choose your life.

Even when it’s hard. Especially then.

And honestly, if this is what freedom looks like, I’ll take it.

I’ll do the dishes myself.