by Marcia Middleton

Created on: July 16, 2010

There is freeness in the absence of your company. The revelation was a shock from out of the blue as I sat there trying to cry, to rage, to feel heartbroken...any of the things that one was supposed to feel when they'd been left behind to gather dust like one more faded knick-nack, paint chipping, sitting in a forgotten corner of some geriatric person's home. I couldn't muster any emotion besides relief.

 I realized this one day as I looked around our empty room, walls bare of any small mementos to give it life beyond the blank white. The air was chilled as the winter wind blew around the edge of our house and past the window I had flung open to release the lingering ghost of a relationship that had passed. Outside, screams and giggles unintelligible filled the air from the elementary students scrambling to catch the correct yellow bus and waving goodbye to friends for the remainder of the day. This tiny reminder that life constantly evolves, always continues, made me happier than anything you had done in the last half-year.

 You had done a lot with me in just six short months, capturing my days and sneaking into my nights like a thief  silently pries wide a window left at a crack for ventilation. You made me dinners, cooking over the shining stainless steel stove. The dim light from the hood illuminating our faces as we would talk the time away; there was where you always made your plans with me. I don;t pretend any longer that they were our plans or even any part mine. They were you castles made of air; a nothingness that had every appearance of being reality.

You also made me mad. We would fight constantly, throwing insults and accusations with all the malice and accuracy of a trained assassin shooting his bullet. You made me disappointed. Panicked when you didn’t show up for prior commitments.  Nothing conveys complete disreagrd for somebody like not being where you're supposed to be. No call. No email. No idea where you were or who you were with. Actually, I take that back. You were where you weren't supposed to be and with some other woman; of course I knew that. I was always left tackling the hard tasks by myself (does our son's funeral ring a bell?) wondering who you were laying with while you were lying to me.

I realized something the day you left me standing there, shocked. I don’t want to be MADE to do anything. Somehow between "I do" and "I'm leaving"  you had become the supreme authority, leaving me helpless to stem the tide of panic and fear you brought about every time you went philandering. I had been a dam holding back the flow of truth for decades, not knowing when I might crack but clearly recognizing that I couldn't hold on much longer under the ever increasing pressures. I never wanted to be made; I simply wanted to be. Myself. Your wife.

The end of our marriage was the most freedom I had felt in many years. Thank you for leaving. It was the first day of the rest of my life.

Learn more about this author, Marcia Middleton.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.