You made me look like I had a nervous breakdown and abandoned our marriage. I made you look like someone going through a hard time, which is better than the alternative. What alternative? Me telling them the truth about how obsessive and unstable you became about getting pregnant. The words hit her like a slap. Unstable. Amanda, you were injecting yourself with hormones that made you crazy.
You couldn’t talk about anything except ovulation and fertility treatments. You turned our marriage into a medical procedure. I was trying to have the baby you said you wanted. I wanted a baby, not a wife, who disappeared and got replaced by someone obsessed with conception schedules. So now I’m obsessive and unstable.
But 3 months ago, you were right there with me making those schedules because I was trying to support you through something that was clearly more important to you than our actual relationship. She felt like she was losing her mind. Austin was rewriting their entire history, making her the villain in a story where she’d been the one desperately trying to save their marriage.
Austin, you’re the one who bought the ovulation kits. You’re the one who tracked my cycles. You’re the one who made doctor appointments because you were falling apart every month when you got your period. I was trying to help you feel like we had some control. You’re lying. I’m not lying, Amanda. I’m telling you how I experienced our marriage, which was watching the woman I married disappear into an obsession with something we might never have.
She hung up the phone and sat in her empty house, wondering if she was actually going crazy. Had she been obsessive? Had she made fertility more important than their relationship? Had she driven Austin away with her desperation to get pregnant? 2 days later, she found out Austin and Cynthia were living together.
Her neighbor mentioned seeing a woman at Austin’s brother’s house where Austin had supposedly been staying. When she drove by after work, she saw Austin’s car in the driveway along with a sleek new saloon car. She sat in her car across the street, watching through the windows as Austin played with his nephews in the living room while a beautiful woman cooked dinner in the kitchen.
They looked like a happy, complete couple. Austin had moved on so completely that he was already playing house with someone else while she was living in an empty house, waiting for divorce papers to finalize so she could figure out how to rebuild her entire life from nothing. That’s when she realized Austin’s cruelty had been strategic.
He’d made her feel crazy, made her doubt her own memories, made her question whether she’d been the problem all along. He’d isolated her from his family by painting her as unstable. He’d left her with no financial resources and no support system. And he’d done it all while playing the concerned husband, dealing with an unhinged wife.
The final insult came the following week when Austin called to tell her about the baby shower invitation. I wanted to give you a heads up about something,” he said, his voice artificially gentle. “Cynthia is pregnant.” The words hit her like a physical blow. “Pregnant? We found out last week. It’s still early, but we wanted to tell our families.
” How is that possible? You said you had fertility issues. Turns out the tests were wrong. Or maybe my levels improved after I stopped being stressed about it all the time. Of course, Austin’s fertility problems had magically resolved themselves the minute he left her. Anyway, Austin continued, “We’re having a baby shower next month, and Cynthia thought it would be good to invite you.” She couldn’t speak.
