Page 72 of Cursing My Cheating Husband

“That’s not what I want,” he pressed in.

“Shut up!” I screamed. “You can let any hope of forgiveness die now. I will never forgive you for any of it.”

I strode past him without waiting for a response, putting as much distance between us as possible. I was relieved when he took the hint and fell back, instead of keeping pace and pestering me with further self-serving dishonesty.

I was full of energy, going so fast I almost reached jogging speed. The air was getting warmer, and summer was almost here.

It occurred to me this was the perfect moment to scale up indulging my post-divorce sexual freedoms, even more than I had been. It was going to be a hot summer. Hopefully, one that would finally break Maddox’s spirit, so I could move into my own future knowing I’d left nothing but an empty husk behind me.

CHAPTER 30

MADDOX

Three Months Later

The beach house was stunning, all weathered wood and white furnishings. Callie had rented it for the long weekend, a final getaway before the summer ended. Through the master bedroom’s wall of windows, the ocean stretched endlessly toward the horizon, but I kept my focus on my task. She would be here soon, and everything had to be flawless.

I ran my palm across the bed, finding the 600-thread-count sheets I’d brought from home suitably crisp. The sheets that came with this beach rental were adequate for most people, but adequate wasn’t good enough for Callie. She deserved to sink into softness at the end of each day, to feel luxury against her skin.

I fluffed the pillows once more and gave them a spritz of her favorite lavender pillow spray, and stepped back to assess my work. I was pleased to find the bedroom now met my standards for Callie.

On to the flowers.

I’d assembled vases of fresh peonies and dahlias on the kitchen counter, and now I moved through the house placing them in every room. Another thing I’d learned this summer were her favorite flowers, and which colors made her smile. Information I should have gathered years ago, when it would have truly meant something.

Funny how much satisfaction I found in this now. In the beginning, every task she assigned me had felt degrading. Making her meals, cleaning the kitchen, being forced to stand and wait… I had seethed through so much of it.

But somewhere along the way, the resentment had burned itself out, and something else had taken its place.

I loved her. More than I ever had during our marriage, when I’d been too stupid and selfish to recognize what I had. Every day this summer, watching her grow stronger and more confident, I’d fallen deeper. I loved the way she laughed now, unguarded and full. The authority in her voice when she gave instructions was inspiring. It was awesome to watch the confident way she now moved through the world, like she finally believed she belonged in it.

Seeing her with other men remained a torture. That part hadn’t gotten easier. Mercifully, she had lost interest in forcing me to directly watch any encounters with her revolving stable of lovers, so that was something. But every time she came back from meeting one of these guys, every time I heard her with someone through the walls, it carved another piece out of me.

Of course, I couldn’t deny that the pain I was feeling was just and earned. This was nothing compared to what I’d put her through.

So I endured it. I served her. I tried to become someone worthy of the forgiveness I knew I might never receive.

It gave me some tiny sliver of hope that she hadn’t yet become emotionally involved with anyone. No boyfriends so far, only flings.

I checked the pantry next, confirming it had an ample supply of her favorite snacks. And then on to the wine fridge, to confirm her preferred sauvignon blanc was chilling at precisely the right temperature.

The details mattered. They were all I had to offer her now.

Dr. DeMille would be proud of that thought. Possibly the most harrowing moments of my summer had been sitting in her calm, beige office, every Monday and Thursday lunch hour, unpacking the wreckage of my terrible decisions. We’d gone back to childhood, to my father’s rage and my mother’s absence, to the coping mechanisms I’d developed that had curdled into something toxic. I’d learned words for what was wrong with me: avoidant attachment, narcissistic defenses, compartmentalization.

The work was challenging and slow. Dr. DeMille never pushed too hard or let me off too easy. She just kept asking questions that forced me to look at myself honestly, perhaps for the first time in my life.

I had expected therapy to make me feel even more emasculated than I already did. But the opposite was true. What had been emasculating was giving in to my demons and becoming such a fucking asshole in the first place. I had been a spineless coward, hiding from my issues instead of dealing with them. If I’d truly been a man before, I would have had the strength to face all of this, long before my hand was forced.

I had been certain that sitting on some therapist’s couch talking about my feelings would feel self-indulgent and absurd. Instead, it proved to be as intense as the most challenging workouts. Every session left me drained and sore in a different way, like I’d pushed myself past failure on every set.

As hard as it was, it was clearly essential to confront how I’d become a man so selfish and hollow, someone who had taken an incredible woman’s love and treated it like it was nothing. Someone who had always prioritized his own gratification over everyone else, and who had justified cruelty by saying it was just what guys did.

That man disgusted me.

I didn’t want to be him anymore. That was the thing Dr. DeMille had helped me understand. I had to do this work whether Callie ever forgave me or not. Whether the curse was ever lifted or not. Because living as that man, even if I’d gotten away with it forever, was no life at all.

The curse barely crossed my mind these days, which would have seemed inconceivable in those first weeks, when the crushing shame of it had been all I could think about. But that felt like another lifetime now. What I wanted wasn’t access to other women. All I wanted was Callie, and true reconciliation, with a real chance to show her who I was becoming. Even if it took years. Even if I had to earn it one perfectly made bed and one carefully arranged flower vase at a time.