Member-only story
Is it cheating if he’s left you?
Navigating the gray areas of modern relationships
My husband left me on the last day of May, 2017. I was still recovering from a mastectomy.
We had just bought him a new car, liquidating our savings. Since, in our marriage, I was the one who researched and bought new vehicles, I was exhausted. Because of the surgery, it hurt for me to wear a seat belt, and I’d been dealing with the chronic pain for several hours while we’d driven around looking at SUVs. But we were finally done.
I just wanted to relax on the couch with a cup of hot tea and read. I wasn’t prepared for what happened.
He looked nervous when he asked me to talk.
“Wait a second,” I said. “My wound is aching, let me get a pain pill.”
I did that, made myself some tea, and then lay back on the couch and looked at him. He was jittery.
“I’m leaving you,” he said. “I want a divorce.”
I couldn’t believe it.
“I thought we were doing well…”
“We are,” he admitted.
“I thought we were happy?”
“I’ve been happy,” he agreed.
He’s an alcoholic, but he’d been sober for 10 months straight at that point, and…
