She did not say a word.
I told her she was full of crap. This had nothing to do with feeling unfulfilled by a decision she played a major part in making. She was just making excuses for herself.
Her voice started shaking again, and she said it was not true.
Luke spoke up and cut her off. He said he did not know she was married.
I asked if he really wanted me to believe that he did not see the pictures of the two of us in the living room.
He said she told him we were separated and working on a divorce. He claimed she told him I had moved out months ago.
I asked my wife if it was true.
She could not meet my eyes, but she nodded. She said she had really wanted to leave me at the time, but now she realized that was not what she really wanted.
I said it was convenient that she realized that right after I caught her red-handed.
I told Luke to get out.
I did not have to say it twice. He scampered right out of the room without another look at me.
She started crying as soon as we heard the front door close.
“I know I made a mistake,” she said.
But I cut her off and told her to leave, too.
She looked up at me and said I did not mean that.
I promised her I did.
She had told me as clearly as she could that she did not want to be married to me anymore. But I was not the one who was going to leave.
She got out of bed and walked over to me. I moved away from her. I could not get the image of her and Luke out of my head. I did not even want to be near her.
She stopped a few feet away from me and begged me just to talk to her. She said she knew we could work through it if we went to therapy. She said she knew she needed professional help.
I did not fall for any of it.
Of course, I was not happy to have to end my relationship, but there was no coming back from this. She had slept with another man in my bed. There was nothing she could say that would make this right.
So the only option left was divorce, and there was no way I was going to be the one to move out.
We argued about that for a while. During that time, she put her clothes back on, and we ended up in the living room. I was still angry and disappointed, but I cooled down after a bit.
Eventually, we settled on giving her a few days to move out. In the meantime, she would stay in the guest room.
That is the arrangement we have been living with so far. She sticks to her room most of the time, and I stay out of the house as much as possible. Between going to work and meeting with a lawyer, I have always had something to keep me busy.
Yes, I am already processing a divorce. Dora knows that, and she is not happy about it.
She was convinced that we were just going to start with a separation and that we would be able to fix things somehow. I have already told her there is no chance of that.
Just looking at her makes me feel sick. There is no way she can make me love her again.
Dora has already made plans to move in with her mom. Her mom lives an hour away, and they do not have the best relationship. Neither of them is thrilled about Dora moving back in, but she does not have any better options.
Her mom even called me to see if we could work something out.
When I explained how I had walked in on her and her affair partner, she sighed, called her daughter some names, and said she understood.
I figured there would not be much more to say after that. Dora was moving out soon, and the prenup should have made the divorce pretty uneventful.
I was wrong.
Dora left two days after my first post, just like we agreed. She cried a lot that day and begged me to change my mind. I went back into my room and closed the door until she left.
When I talked to my lawyer originally, he practically lit up when he saw my prenup. He went over it carefully and said it was solid.
He was happy that I had insisted on her getting her own lawyer to go over it. He said that would make it a lot harder for them to challenge it in court.
He was right.
I had always expected the prenup to make the divorce a much more streamlined affair. We had a legal document between two adults that determined how everything was supposed to be split.
That seemed straightforward to me, but that did not stop her lawyer from doing his best to get the prenup dismissed.
He argued that the agreement was unfair because she had spent three years out of the workforce.
My lawyer responded with proof that it had been her suggestion and a mutual agreement.
Then he tried to argue that she had not understood the document fully before signing it.
That did not work either, since she had her own attorney. There were records showing that she and her attorney had negotiated several changes that made their way into the final document.
She was fully aware of what she had signed.
None of their arguments were convincing, but that did not stop them from trying their hardest and dragging things out as long as they could.
Eventually, the judge upheld the agreement as reasonable. Nothing had changed significantly since the marriage started. Our relationship had ended under terms that were clearly stated in the prenup.
Once they realized they could not get the prenup thrown out, they switched focus to individual assets.
One of those assets was Dora’s SUV.
She loved that car.