I kept thinking about what would happen if Emma finally decided she was finished.<\/p>\n
In my mind, that possibility offered a kind of relief.<\/p>\n
I wouldn't have to make the first move.<\/p>\n
I wouldn't have to explain why I had become involved with Caroline.<\/p>\n
I wouldn't have to admit that I had been preparing for the end while letting Emma believe we were still trying.<\/p>\n
If Emma ended the marriage, I could tell myself that the decision had been hers.<\/p>\n
I could describe the relationship as something we had both outgrown.<\/p>\n
I could say that things had become too difficult for either of us.<\/p>\n
I could avoid the simplest sentence.<\/p>\n
I had helped bring us here.<\/p>\n
I wanted Emma's decision to become the explanation for my behavior.<\/p>\n
That was unfair to her in a way I had not fully acknowledged.<\/p>\n
She could not make an informed decision about our marriage because I was hiding the information that mattered most.<\/p>\n
I wanted her to react to the distance I had created without knowing why I had created it.<\/p>\n
I wanted her to become frustrated by my absence and decide she couldn't continue.<\/p>\n
Then I could point to her frustration as evidence that the marriage was already beyond repair.<\/p>\n
It was a plan built around keeping her in the dark.<\/p>\n
I had convinced myself I was waiting for a sign.<\/p>\n
I was really waiting for her to take responsibility for a choice I was afraid to make.<\/p>\n
I could see that more clearly now, though seeing it did not immediately make me behave differently.<\/p>\n
I still wanted a clean ending.<\/p>\n
I still wanted to believe there was a way to leave the marriage without becoming the person who had betrayed it.<\/p>\n
I still wanted to separate my feelings from my actions, as though wanting something different could excuse what I had done to get there.<\/p>\n
But the marriage was not a story I could rewrite simply by changing the way I described the ending.<\/p>\n
Emma had been part of it.<\/p>\n
Her trust had been part of it.<\/p>\n
Her effort to arrange an anniversary dinner had been part of it.<\/p>\n
I had made those things seem unimportant because they stood in the way of what I wanted.<\/p>\n
I had treated her plans as though they were obligations I could ignore until she stopped making them.<\/p>\n
I had treated her patience as though it meant she would accept whatever explanation I eventually offered.<\/p>\n
I had treated her love as though it gave me extra time to decide whether I wanted to remain her husband.<\/p>\n
None of those assumptions was fair.<\/p>\n
She had not agreed to wait indefinitely while I worked out what I wanted.<\/p>\n
She had not agreed to be kept in a marriage whose condition I was describing differently to another woman.<\/p>\n
She had not agreed to have her anniversary turned into an opportunity for me to avoid ending things honestly.<\/p>\n
I had made those choices without her knowledge.<\/p>\n
I could not ask her to carry the responsibility for them.<\/p>\n
That was the part I had tried hardest to avoid.<\/p>\n
If I admitted that I was the one making the marriage impossible to trust, I would lose the excuse that we had simply grown apart.<\/p>\n
I would have to accept that the distance between us was not just something I had noticed.<\/p>\n
It was something I had helped create.<\/p>\n
I had been leaving Emma behind long before the anniversary.<\/p>\n
I had done it every time I chose not to tell her what was happening.<\/p>\n
I had done it every time I allowed her to believe my absence had an innocent explanation.<\/p>\n
I had done it every time I promised to discuss the money later and then found another reason to wait.<\/p>\n
I had done it by telling Caroline that the marriage was over while continuing to let Emma believe I was still participating in it honestly.<\/p>\n
The anniversary was not the beginning.<\/p>\n
It was a clear example of what had already been happening.<\/p>\n
I had wanted the night to force a decision.<\/p>\n
I wanted Emma to become angry enough to end the relationship.<\/p>\n
I wanted the event to give me a reason to leave without having to admit how long I had been preparing to go.<\/p>\n
But I could not make her responsible for a choice she did not know I was asking her to make.<\/p>\n
I had to stop treating her reaction as a way out.<\/p>\n
I had to accept that whatever happened to the marriage, my choices would remain mine.<\/p>\n
That did not mean I knew what to do next.<\/p>\n
I still had the money to explain.<\/p>\n
I still had the truth to tell Caroline.<\/p>\n
I still had the consequences of the anniversary to face.<\/p>\n
I still had no guarantee that either woman would forgive me.<\/p>\n
But I could no longer honestly claim that I was waiting for Emma to decide what happened to us.<\/p>\n
I had already made decisions that changed the marriage.<\/p>\n
I had already broken promises that mattered.<\/p>\n
I had already chosen to keep the truth from her.<\/p>\n
I had already started leaving.<\/p>\n
I just wanted her to say the words that would allow me to pretend I hadn't.<\/p>\n
I kept thinking about what would happen if Emma finally decided she was finished. In my mind, that possibility offered a kind of relief. I wouldn't have to make the … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38258"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38278,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38258\/revisions\/38278"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}