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My husband is cheating on me.
Huh.
Honestly, I did not see this one coming. Yes, our whirlwind marriage has been crumbling since the day we said, “I do,” but I just didn’t think he was this stupid.
Kevin is fourteen years older than me, and when we met three years ago, I thought he was everything. My protector. My best friend. My safe haven. My dream man.
He started as all great narcissists do—charming, funny even. His energy made him someone who I wanted to be swept up into. I wanted him to think I was worthy of being part of his world.
With dark blond hair, deep brown eyes, standing at six feet tall, and a body that shows he spends hours in the gym every day, he is conventionally attractive. Anyone would think so. Even now, I can admit that.
At the time, I paid attention to all of these face-value qualities and ignored the details that were right in front of me. I was desperately in need of a connection when I met him.
I took his possessive behavior toward me as something out of a romance novel. What those spicy books don’t tell you is that this quality is, in fact, a red flag, waving in front of your face in real life. It should not make your panties damp. It should not put stars in your eyes.
His possessive behavior made sense at first. As his much younger wife, I thought he was staking his claim. I was only twenty-five when we met, and thanks to my mother’s genes, my body is something I don’t need to work hard to keep in shape.
I thought I understood his perspective. Other men wanted me, and he wanted to make it clear to them that I was his wife.
What started out as him putting his arm tightly around my waist when we were out slowly turned into not letting me leave his side at events, telling me to cover up more, and how he thought I needed to lose ten pounds. This was all in the time we were dating.
I am five foot eight and 130 pounds on my worst day… how can I lose ten pounds?
The truth of the matter is I wanted to belong to someone. Even with all of his flaws, I loved the attention he gave me. I felt special being with him.
We met and got married within eleven months of our first date. That should have told me something too. Way too fast. Another red flag, waving in front of me.
But once again, I thought this is what love is meant to be like. Someone telling you how precious you are to them and making you feel like you mattered. I thought his words were to help me in a sadistic way.
Love moves at warp speed, and I needed to embrace it.
As soon as we got married, things began to get worse. In the past two years, his charming personality has mostly disappeared.
Our marriage has gone even more downhill recently.
His days turn into nights in the office; he’s either rude or indifferent to me in private, and most weeks, I only see him at an event or in the mornings.
He’s a jealous, possessive grump when I’m out with him, and at home, I’m yesterday’s news.
He picks me apart whenever he sees me.
That dress is too tight, Avery. Are you trying to ask for it?
What is wrong with your makeup?
Is your credit card not working? Why don’t you make a waxing appointment? You have hair on your upper lip.
I do not have hair on my upper lip, thank you very much.
His pre-marriage life of working late nights and attending functions is still his world, not me. He didn’t want me; he wanted a wife. Arm candy and nothing more.
I’m not sure how he convinced me while we were dating that marriage would be different, but he did. I was such a fool. I wrongfully assumed that he would care for me until death do us part.
I’m now just another possession he has collected and is safely keeping in his historic house. Our home, I should say. But it’s not a home. It’s a luxurious mansion designed to make others wish for your life.
With seven bedrooms, five bathrooms, and an expansive outdoor space, it’s something out of a magazine. It’s in a prime location downtown, one of the wealthiest parts of Charleston, South Carolina. A museum for others and a prison for me. Bought with a large family in mind.
A family that he has been pressuring me for the past six months to start working on. How can I agree to bear his children when I’m just another toy he brings out to play with when he’s good and ready? When I am being treated so poorly?
