Okay, I’ll tell my story.

I was involved with “Denise” for 9 years.

She would pick fights seemingly any time I was in a good mood, and frequently ruined important things for me (like my graduation party from uni) by getting angry…sometimes because I was “ignoring her” and other times because I “wouldn’t leave her alone.”

I loved her and tried to be everything for her even though we fought all the time, because that’s what I thought relationships were all about…work, right?

But after we got married, she became genuinely abusive towards me. Some of my favourite Denise one-liners were: “you’re worthless” “you’re never there for me.” “If we have kids, you probably won’t even love them.” “I don’t even want to have your kids.” Our bedroom was dead.

I asked her to go to counselling three different times during our relationship, but she refused because “we don’t need it.” Great…

It got to the point that I was afraid to interact with her in any way.

It was literally: work –> workout –> dinner –> bed. Eventually, I started to get really depressed and ended up talking to a friend of several years, “Jamie”. She was nice to me…not judgmental and seemed to really care about me and how I felt. We started spending more time together and it eventually started to grow into an emotional affair. Eventually, we fell for each other then Denise and I separated and divorced (ironically after she asked me when we were going to start having kids).

Of course, Denise found out (they always do).

Obviously, she was very hurt and angry, but she ended up asking me basically “why Jamie and not me?” to which I replied, “I can trust her with my emotions. She doesn’t hurt me.” We stayed up all night, talked a lot, hugged a lot, cried a lot, apologized to each other and divorced uncontested.

Denise and I are still friends and Jamie and I are happily married.