I hated complaining to her about him or our relationship, because it did nothing but further tarnish him in her eyes, but I had no one else to turn to. In my family, we didn’t talk about problems. It was understood that you were to always keep up appearances. If you had an issue, you resolved it quietly. You didn’t bring attention to it. You swept it under the rug. I had been trained my whole life to stay silent, until Sam.
It was comforting to walk in to our usual coffee shop and see her sitting at a table waiting for me. I went straight for her. She stood when she saw me and opened her arms for me without question, knowing I’d be here with bad news instead of good.
“What happened, Lena?”
I let myself take the comfort from her, allowed her arms to pull out some of my anxiety. I sighed into her shoulder, trying to keep the tears at bay. I didn’t want to cry anymore.
“I don’t know, Sam.” I pulled away and sat in the chair opposite her, giving a sad smile to the cup waiting for me. If Sam made it to the coffee shop first, she always bought my drink, and vice versa. “Thank you for the coffee.” She smiled at me, but said nothing. “I made the dinner, put on the dress, and was all ready for him when he came home from work.” I dove right into the story. I knew Sam wasn’t going to stand for pleasantries and chit chat.
“Did he appreciate it?” she asked, not even blinking.
“No. Actually, he seemed put out by it. Like having dinner with me was an inconvenience to his evening schedule.”
“That bastard.”
“It gets worse.”
“I’m not surprised.” She raised her eyebrows, waiting for me to continue.
“When I mentioned I wanted to work on our marriage, that I wanted to get back to the happy couple we had been when we got married, he basically told me our marriage was over and that I should get used to the status quo. He said that our marriage fell apart a long time ago and that it was too late to fix it.” Samantha said nothing, but I could tell she was holding her rage inside for my benefit. She knew what I had been hoping for, knew I wanted my husband back. So, out of love for me, she was reining in all the expletives I knew she wanted to unleash, because she knew it wouldn’t help me, wouldn’t make me feel any better. I loved her even more for it.
I looked down at my coffee cup, slowly twisting it around and around, watching it circle in my fingers, while I continued.
“He wants to hold up the façade of our marriage, you know, still make appearances together in public, but pretty much indicated he was done with me in private.” My voice faltered on the last few words, my throat constricting with that painful pinch that was always followed by tears, aching. But I pushed it back. I wouldn’t cry any more. “He only wants to be my husband when other people can see us.”
Sam was quiet for a few moments more, and then she adjusted in her seat and tilted her head to the side. “Why would any man want to continue a marriage without the benefits of marriage? I mean, let’s be real. He’s a man. I can understand him wanting to stay in the marriage if you were going to try and fix it and work on the intimacy, or I can understand him cutting his losses and wanting out in order to find that intimacy in other places. But what hot-blooded man chooses to stay in a sexless marriage and wants it to remain that way?”
I didn’t look up at her and I didn’t say anything, afraid to tell her what I’d seen under his shirt collar. Being a terrible husband, being absent and emotionally unavailable, was bad enough. If I told her what I saw, she’d likely be unstoppable in her rage and find him to take her anger out on him. She would also try to pressure me into leaving him, and I knew I couldn’t do that. I also knew she’d never be able to understand why. The mistake I’d made before our marriage had even begun would keep me tethered to him.
I sighed loudly and shook my head. “I couldn’t fathom the thoughts running through his mind. Perhaps in a few days I can try to talk to him again. Maybe I just caught him at a bad time.”
“Your wedding anniversary was a bad time for him to talk to you?” she asked snidely. I didn’t take offense. I knew she wasn’t angry with me.
“He’s stressed at work,” I mumbled.
“Don’t make excuses for him, Lena.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize either!”
“What do you want from me?”
“I want you to take a stand! Don’t let him walk all over you and don’t let him make all the decisions! It’s your marriage, too, Lena. It’s your life just as much as it is his.”
I heard her words, felt them sink into me, and then I felt them fall away. I was conflicted. Before I could stop them, the words were falling out of my mouth. “I think he’s cheating on me,” I whispered.