“I met your dad and everything finished.”
Apparently, that was it. After everything.
We had two years of long-distance before marriage, then the years that followed as husband and wife, and somewhere along the way I spent an enormous amount of myself trying to make this work.
Then we met recently. And afterward, I received three sentences:
That was the ending I got.
Not a grand conversation. Not some dramatic final scene.
Just a message telling me to start the divorce paperwork.
Thanks.
Ah yes. Nothing says the end of a marriage quite like the emotional warmth of a customer-service closing line.
Apparently, this is how my great romantic tragedy ends.
Not with violins. With paperwork.
I suppose I should be grateful there wasn't a survey afterward.
How satisfied were you with your marriage experience?
Would you recommend us to a friend?
Absolutely fucking not. But here's the part that hurts.
Not because I want him back. I don't.
Not because I'm secretly waiting for some dramatic reconciliation. I'm not.
Please. I've suffered enough. I don't need a Bollywood subplot.
What hurts is the sheer coldness of receiving something this final in such ordinary language.
The way years of a relationship can suddenly be reduced to: “Everything finished.”
As if someone switched off the Wi-Fi. As if the connection simply expired.
As if there wasn't a woman on the other side of those words who had spent years trying to make a marriage work.
A woman who compromised. A woman who waited.
A woman who changed her hair. Her clothes.
Her habits. Her personality.
A woman who spent far too much time learning how to tiptoe around someone she was supposed to feel safe with.
And now? Please begin divorce documentation.
How wonderfully romantic.
Nothing says I once called you my wife quite like outsourcing the ending to a lawyer.
And then there's the sentence that almost makes me laugh: “Let me know when you need support from me financially or others.”
Oh, don't worry. I will.
Because apparently even my heartbreak needs a budget now.
Lawyer fee? Put it on the spreadsheet.
Nafkah? Spreadsheet.
Mut'ah? Another spreadsheet.
Trying to rebuild my life while I'm currently unemployed? You guessed it.
Spreadsheet.
Apparently I've reached the stage of divorce where emotional devastation comes with accounting requirements.
Somewhere between the tears and the paperwork, I'm expected to become my own finance department.
Honestly, impressive.
Marriage taught me compromise. Divorce is apparently teaching me Excel.
Character development is getting fucking weird.
But underneath all the sarcasm, there is one thing I can't joke away.
I really did think there was still something left to resolve.
Maybe not the marriage itself. But the ending.
I thought there would be a moment where two people who had shared so much would at least acknowledge what had happened.
Instead, I got a message. Three sentences. And a task.
Start the divorce process.
Okay. Message received.
Maybe this is what closure looks like when romance has completely left the building.
No dramatic goodbye. No final conversation that magically explains everything.
Just a document waiting to be processed.
And me, sitting here thinking: Well. That's one hell of a way to end a chapter.
But here's what this ending doesn't get to decide.
It doesn't get to decide what this says about me.
His decision doesn't mean I wasn't lovable.
It doesn't mean I wasn't enough. It doesn't erase the years we actually lived.
And it doesn't mean I need to spend the rest of my life auditioning for another man's approval.
I'm not looking for a replacement. I'm not rushing into another marriage.
I'm not looking for another man to prove that someone can love me.
Right now, I have more important work.
I have to find me.
The woman underneath all the compromises. The woman who liked jeans.
The woman who wore perfume.
The woman who put on makeup because she fucking wanted to.
The woman who laughed loudly. The woman who was lively.
The woman who didn't have to monitor every word, every movement, every little piece of herself.
That woman isn't dead.
She's just been waiting for me to stop apologizing for her existence.
So fine.
You want divorce documentation? I'll handle the documentation.
You want everything finished? Fine.
I'll finish what needs finishing.
But don't confuse the end of this marriage with the end of me.
You can close the marriage. You can collect the paperwork.
You can sign whatever needs signing. You can even write “everything finished.”
But you don't get to write the final sentence about who I am.
That's mine.
And maybe my final sentence is much simpler: The marriage finished. I didn't.
No comments:
Post a Comment