28 September 2025
I came home that evening to find Emily setting the table in the kitchen. I took her hand, asked her to sit down with me for a moment, and said, I want a divorce. She stared at me, silent for a heartbeat, then finally asked why. I had no answer. My silence seemed to shatter her, and the dinner wed planned never happened. She started shouting in fragments, then fell silent, only to start again. By the time the house fell quiet, she was sobbing for the rest of the night. I understood her pain, but I couldnt offer any comfortI had fallen out of love with the woman Id shared ten years with and found myself drawn to someone else.
Feeling guilty, I slid a settlement form across the table. I promised to leave her the flat on Kensington Gardens and the BMW wed bought together, but she tore the paper to shreds and tossed the pieces out the window, then began to weep again. Apart from a lingering remorse, I felt nothing else; the life wed built together had become a stranger to me.
I regretted the years wed spent under one roof and was desperate to cut the ties, to chase the genuine love I now felt elsewhere. The next morning, a note lay on the nightstand with Emilys terms: she asked me to postpone the filing for a month and, during that time, to keep up the façade of a happy family for the sake of our son, Oliver, who was preparing for his GCSEs. She also reminded me of the day we married, when I carried her into our flat on my arms. Now she wanted me to do the same each morning for the next thirty dayscarry her out of the bedroom, still cradled in my arms.
Since Id started seeing the other woman, Emily and I had almost no physical contactbreakfast together, dinner together, separate sides of the bed at night. When I finally lifted her for the first time in months, a strange knot tightened in my chest. Olivers delighted clapping pulled me back to reality; Emilys face wore a brief, genuine smile, and I felt an inexplicable ache. The bedroom was only ten metres from the dining room, and as I carried her, she closed her eyes and whispered, barely audible, Please dont tell Oliver about the divorce until the agreed date.
On day two the role of the devoted husband felt a little easier. Emily rested her head on my shoulder, and I realised how long Id stopped noticing the little details that once made me love her, details that had faded over a decade. By day four, as I hoisted her again, I thought of the ten years shed given me. On day five my chest tightened at the vulnerability of her small, trusting body pressed against me. Each day the act grew less burdensome.
One morning I caught her rummaging through the wardrobe, realizing that after all these years most of her clothes now hung far too large on her frail frame. Shed thinned, seemed to be slipping away, and that explained why the weight I bore felt lighter every day. My sudden clarity struck like a punch to the solar plexus. Without thinking I brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. She called Oliver over, wrapped both of us in a tight embrace, and tears welled in my eyes. I turned away, unwilling to change my mind. I lifted her once more, and she clutched my neck; I held her close, just as I had on our wedding morning.
As the agreed month drew to a close, a storm of confusion roiled inside me. Something had shifted, something I couldnt name. I went to the other woman and told her I would not go through with the divorce.
On the drive home I reflected that the monotony of married life does not stem from loves death, but from forgetting the significance each person holds for the other. I veered off the main road, stopped at a florist, and bought a bouquet with a card that read, I will carry you in my arms until the very last day. My heart thumped wildly as I entered the flat, bouquet in hand. I walked through every room, finally finding Emily in the bedroomshe lay still, lifeless.
For months, blinded by my obsession with another, I had floated in a cloud, while Emily silently battled a grave illness. Knowing she had little time left, she summoned her final reserves of will to shield Oliver from stress and preserve the image of a caring father and loving husband in his eyes.
