Everyone Knew They Were Getting Divorced Except Them.
By: Lisa Martens
Tags: Short Story, Women, Divorce, Fiction, Family

Photo by Naomi August on Unsplash

They said it was because of the kids, and no one else understood sacrifice. But they did — Younger couples pointed to them as an example of what not to be, and older couples just shook their heads and shrugged. “It happens,” they murmured. “It could happen to anyone.” They were more humbled, more restrained in their judgment — They had been burned, even though they had once thought themselves too smart.

Their Christmas cards were perfect except for a stain on her favorite shirt — It was just water, and it dried right up, but to her it was just another example of how she could never look nice, how she always had to take care of her two boys, and how she could never, ever, not even for five minutes, wear something made of silk.

Her oldest and youngest had been arguing over a bottle of water. The oldest had taken a sip, and the youngest had gotten angry. “I’m going to get the virus from you!” “We live together, dummy, if I had the virus, you’d have it already.” They fought over the Covid-contaminated bottle, and then water had sprayed all over her shirt…right before the photo, and with no replacement. She had brought changes of shirts for everyone else, everyone except herself.

Tired mothers told her it would get better. They couldn’t say when, exactly. Still, that advice was not helpful. She wasn’t just tired. She was full of regret. She had the distinct feeling that while those moms were tired, they still enjoyed their families. At least, they were better at faking it.

She hated them all. She hated, above all, the man who had convinced her it would be a good idea, that she would have help, who then would spend long hours at work and take mandatory business trips.

She regretted not getting something in writing — After all, she had signed a prenup to make him feel better about marriage, back when he thought she was just out to get her hooks into a man…when he thought that’s what all women wanted.

People saw how they Venmo’d each other money and the cute, public notes they left for the other. “They’re trying too hard,” they said. “This is so damn tacky.”

She had tried, just once, to voice her grievances in a Mom’s group online. She was immediately attacked and called selfish, and was told she should never have had children.

“Well,” she thought. “That ship has sailed. Everyone told me I would change my mind once I had kids. And I didn’t.”

He really didn’t know. He thought they had a regular marriage with regular kids. And they did, for the most part. But he didn’t feel the same pressure or tension at all. He thought things were “fine.” And he was right. Things were fine for him because they weren’t fine for her. He was oblivious, and she was ready to call it quits. He thought that she was just moody, but that they were still in love. This was the normal stress of parenthood, so he thought.

And so he was blind to her bids for attention…acts that he called “needy” when really, she was in desperate need — She couldn’t be honest with her therapist, and she always knew she was bad when she had to put on a show, even for him. The performance never ended, and she started thinking about how she might as well be a stripper or a porn star, if she was going to be acting and faking her way through life.

If she was going to be an actress anyway, why be a housewife?

It was a horrible acting game. The pandemic Christmas was the worst of all, and it had little to do with the pandemic. The pandemic stripped away all the socializing of Christmas, so they only had each other. And she realized that, without the commercialism, without the bells and whistles and holiday parties and events…that she really just didn’t like spending time with her family.

The Christmas that was supposed to bond them the most never made her feel more alone. She almost wished she was single so she could go to those illegal pandemic sex parties. That, that would be living. That would be amazing.

How great would it be, to be so consumed with desire and lust that you were willing to die a horrible death just for one night of getting railed by complete strangers in the dark?

That was the life she wanted, she realized. And she didn’t want to wait until her kids were in college.

She had the realization suddenly, and once she had the thought, she couldn’t unthink it. They were going to break up. Now she knew it, and her thoughts of sort of suicide…her desire not to die, but to just not exist…was suddenly lifted up, up, and away, replaced by the idea of meaningless sex with strangers, of things she had denied herself because it wasn’t what she was supposed to want.