There’s a special kind of loneliness that comes from being married but feeling single. I knew every detail of Rob’s life—his coffee order, his shoe size, which socks he liked for golf days—but he couldn’t have told you my favorite color if his life depended on it.
The night I left started with a burnt casserole and ended with me sobbing in a Motel 6 parking lot.
“You expect too much,” Rob had said when I asked why he never planned dates anymore. “I married you, didn’t I? What else do you want?”
What I wanted was to feel chosen. Not just present, but precious.
The universe answered with cruel irony—my car breaking down outside the Seaside Inn, now owned by Daniel, the man whose proposal I’d turned down at twenty-two because “Rob seemed more stable.”
Over wine in the motel’s cramped office, Daniel confessed he’d never married. “No one measured up to you,” he said, making my heart ache. For three glorious days, I remembered what it felt like to be adored.
Then I found the diagnostics report—my fuel line hadn’t failed naturally. Daniel had paid the local mechanic to ensure I’d stay put.
The realization hit like ice water: both men saw me as something to possess, not a person to partner with.
I left before dawn, the rising sun painting the highway gold. For the first time in my adult life, I wasn’t running toward or away from any man—just toward myself.
