While based on true events quoted to me, these stories are fiction. Sometimes women break hearts as often as men do, and sometimes we forget that toxic patterns go both ways.
Part 1
You genuinely loved him, once upon a time. You traced your name across his heart, built a future with him, whispered to him about the days when the kids were gone and you’d be old together. But something changed after years in the mud of a marriage, when life becomes dull and copy+paste every day. When he buried his head in his projects and stopped trying to impress you. When loss bent his shoulders and grief took the words he used to have for you. And maybe you demanded a little more and he brushed you off. Maybe he got complacent and stopped paying attention. Maybe you put on your best and went out on the town and other men’s heads turned. They made you feel alive again, like blowing on an ember and letting it catch fire again. Unlike the man at home with work in his hands, what must be done still clinging to his work boots after a hard day.
Because men on the town have energy, and their eyes light up to see a pretty woman like you going about her day. Unlike the man at home pulling the globs of your hair from the shower drain that clogged again and you complained this damn old house is good for nothing. But you didn’t tell the man at home how those men made you feel, and you didn’t tell him you just wanted to let the drain clog for a minute so you could dance in the rain with him. And so he kept working.
Because men on the town winking at you with their hands brushing your waist make you feel for once like the world could still hold promise for you. After years discussing bills and school schedule logistics and how to discipline the teenager who snuck away again. Because the man at home is in the muck with you and doesn’t know sometimes you just want him to look up and feel excited again.
Because men on the town still say things that make your heart flutter and your eyes dance and remind your hips how to swing just a little more so you bounce the right way when you walk. Because the man at home still sees it, and appreciates it, but he thinks you know that so he stopped pointing it out. Because he’s pulling rotted shingles off the roof where the wind blew a limb down and he left it too long because you kept finding other chores for him, and now the roof leaks during heavy rains and you sigh aloud about how the house is falling apart and nothing ever works. Because he’s busy trying to fix things while you’re busy dreaming of moving somewhere better. But you stopped telling him your dreams because you assumed he wasn’t listening. He listened and his heart felt heavy for all the ways he seemed to keep failing.
And maybe somewhere in the distance between what the men on the town make you feel and what the man at home is actually doing for you, you forgot that one kind of feeling never lasts and the other kind will carry you through your darkest days. But after years of kids and bills and commutes and mortgages and disappointments and mundane nights falling asleep on the couch to the glow of the TV, you lost track of what matters and what just makes you tired.
So you follow a man on the town out to his car one night and he whispers excitement into your ear and his hands do things you haven’t felt in a long time and suddenly the man at home stops looking like home and more like prison. So you let the man on the town keep going, moving from excitement right into betrayal. And the betrayals keep coming more easily every time. You don’t tell the man at home what you need anymore and all you seem to do is ignore each other, so he misses how you changed your hair and how you’re working out again. He’s out in the garage fixing the wheels on your car and he stops paying attention to when you leave and when you come back because he just worked 10 hours and came home to work 5 more. His eyes drift closed with his back aching on the couch while you’re out on the town feeling alive again.
And so you leave. And the man at home is devastated. You dance out of the house with your clothes in your suitcase and tell him it’s over, we’re through. And he sits in the dark eating ramen and boiled eggs holding back his tears and feeling numb because he built his life around you and worked so hard to keep things nice for you, and you never gave him the chance to do more. He would have broken his back for you and you saw all that work as weakness and kicked him away.
But the men on the town are not what they seemed and they used you and tossed you. They wanted your body not your forever. So, empty and confused, you call the man at home and ask to talk. And he touches you like you remembered again and for a night it feels like this be home again. But in the morning you see his worked hands and the way he snores like that when he dreams and your stomach lurches and you feel the cage closing in and you leave again.
And you do this over and over again, letting him think there’s hope and maybe we can work this out, but you’re still out with men on the town, too. Because being wanted feels so good and desire is so intoxicating now. And so the man at home strings along behind you, hoping you’ll get your fill and come back. And one day he sees a post online announcing your wedding to a man on the town and his heart slams shut and his shoulders slump. And any woman who tries to love him after that can’t get in because he knows now that a decade of work amounts to nothing when the bird can fly away any time she pleases. So why even open the door to let her in? Why make a place for a new bird to stay? They always fly away. They always leave. And he sits in the dark with his ramen and his eggs and tells himself he’s better alone.
Part 2
You were both wild and free when you met. You ran together and you were wild together. But then babies came, and years of fighting. And he took longer to sober up after the babies, but you stayed at home and did all of it while he worked. And you made him understand that he owed you everything for cleaning things up and making things nice. And he went to work every day, had beers with his friends, and came home. While you cleaned the house and change the diapers and cooked the food and sat on the couch until he came back.
And all that unspoken discord blew up on nights when he had too much to drink and you sat on your anger too long. And he always walked out, took off in his truck, leaving you steaming at home. So you took out a credit card and bought little things. A treat to numb the loneliness. You ate your feelings while he worked shifts and went hunting with his friends. You stayed home alone in the house with the toddlers. And then one credit card was maxed out so you took out another. And when that one ran out, he asked where all the money was going. And you shouted and raged at each other because no one ever taught two kids wild and free how to negotiate debt or work through life changes. And the resentment built until you couldn’t stand each other anymore and he started sleeping on the couch.
And every time he drank you ate a little more. Until he was a drunk and you were ashamed to be seen with the lights on and you both hated yourselves behind tight lips to keep the kids from hearing. And he moved into a room at the other end of the house and the thought of him touching you made your skin crawl. And one night you realized it had been a year since he lay in your bed, and he remembered what it felt like to be with a woman who didn’t rage and the fight was more terrible than any before it and he packed a bag and left.
The relief in the house with the tension gone was immeasurable and your spark started to return. He came back and asked if you could work it out and you said no, because the peace felt nice and he was drinking less and maybe it was time to stay apart forever. But you never expected that when his eyes fell on other women, women who had careers and took care of themselves and didn’t need him at all, how your anger would boil and you would shut down. And suddenly you didn’t want him at all but the thought of another woman with him was unbearable. So you told the kids that he was replacing them with a new family. And their fear spilled over into their time with him. And the reality of the choice you both made started to look like a slower death, and the chasm between you suddenly didn’t seem so large. But he was having fun and looked healthier. He was enjoying time with someone else’s children. So you told him he couldn’t have your kids around the new family, because it was the only leverage you had left.
While he was out with other women now, you were at home alone with the credit card bills and the debt you created stacking up and you ran the numbers, then ran them again and realized that you couldn’t afford to live without him. But he was probably already gone. So you shut down and the house fell apart and the kids saw your pain and blamed their dad for leaving. And all of the self righteousness you felt about holding everything down crashed and burned with the reality of what being a single parent would cost you. So you told him everything was falling apart and the kids were having issues. You used his access to them as leverage to bring him back. And he was reluctant and stressed because he wanted to start a new life, but the guilt of turning his back on his family pulled him back in.
But on his way home he still drinks too much, and you are exercising more but you’re triumphant at pulling him back. And out in public you smile while he stands with his arms folded, and he stares at the woman he left while he sits anxiously next to you. And you act like it’s fine but his eyes are on her, and you both inch a little bit further apart. Because a love based on need is no love at all it’s just prison for two wild kids who never learned out to negotiate a life with someone they can only tolerate.
Part 3
You loved a man once who gave the woman before you his whole world. And he loved you too but every woman looks like a threat to him now so he shuts you out so you won’t hurt him too.
You loved a man once who didn’t think before he leapt. And he loved you too, but loving you meant abandoning his family, and the woman before you was holding the chains around his heart.
And there is no loving a man who is still tied to those women, no matter how perfect you are. Because you’ll never be enough when you’re competing with the ghost of the women who came before. And until these men have stopped watering grass that is already dead, they’re not going to see how you water your own.
Love is not the feeling you get when you look at someone. It is the choice, made over and over again, to consider the happiness and wellbeing of the person you love when the easier thing is to be selfish. And sometimes love looks like letting them go so they can find happiness somewhere else. And sometimes love looks like working harder to make what matters last. And sometimes love looks like watching the backs of good men as they walk out the door.
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