It was a beautiful divorce. An achingly sweet dismemberment of love. It was seamless how we divided up our household, everything from couches to dogs. He got the brand-new computer; I got the king-sized, pillow top bed. He got the leather couch set; I got the slightly destroyed velvet couch set. He got the big dog; I got the lap-sized dog. It worked out fine and there was no bitterness lingering in either of our mouths.

Within a month, we lived in separate homes, in separate towns. We decided to take me off the joint checking account. I agreed to this simply because I never had a card to the account in the first place. Instead, I had to submit a letter of request to my husband regarding a pair of shoes, a sweater, or an eBay purchase.

We walked into the bank holding hands and sat down next to one another in a woman’s office where we politely discussed our marriage’s dissolve. The woman sat in shock at our civility. With hands held, I opened my own checking account and removed myself from now, his.

And while we never actually had serious problems in our marriage it still seemed better to cut our losses and continue life sans one another. It was the little things. It’s always the little things. You might survive one deep stab wound but surviving 200 little nicks makes you bleed out. We were bone dry. We took our little box cutter blades and we slashed away ripping out little pieces of our marriage chunk by chunk.

For every summer that went by, and the promise of traveling was unmet, I took a chunk. For every two week time-frame he made me wait for sex, I took a chunk. For every large purchase he made for himself, I took a chunk. For every restriction he put on my interaction with friends, I took a chunk. For every mention of child bearing, I took a chunk. For every lackluster emotion, I took a chunk.

Our ending rationale was he wanted to follow his career and I wanted to follow mine. Simple, sweet and clear-cut. He had his expectations of the marriage and I had mine. When neither expectation was met we parted amicably and moved on.

I, however, am not a robot. With my husband all things were black and white, grey areas were non-existent. I not only lived for the grey areas but in them. Nothing was black and white to me everything was shades of grey. I lived in a veil of grey, while he lived in a world of sharp contrast. White, black, grey they are all shades not a single one of them is a true color. There’s no grey, white or black in ROY G BIV. Neither one of us could’ve been right in our conviction to leave the other because we were color blind.

My blindness did not make walking away from five years of devotion any easier and while we were in alliance for our separation the actual papers were stained with my tears. Because the thought of giving up on him, of leaving something I thought was going to last forever was a deep, deep knife wound. One that hasn’t healed properly yet because it’s still fresh. Every story I tell regarding my ex-husband, opens the wound to infection. At this point in time, the wound hasn’t even scabbed.

I do not know if his stories involve me, I know nothing of his side of the divorce. But from my side, I feel as diplomatic and required as the divorce was it seems to have stolen a huge chunk from me. It was me, that initiated the divorce but my ex-husband who jumped on it full-throttle. He found the lawyer, he drew up the papers. I gave him a seed and he made it bear fruit.

Perhaps, it’s the fact that it was such a clean break that made it so difficult for me. I had a crazy notion that even though we were parting, he should have fought for me. Even though the divorce was completely mutual, we still talk on the phone once a week and his stepmother and I still go shopping, he should have fought for me.

If he had tried, if he had fought, I might still be married but instead he let me go. He is a fisherman well acquainted with the catch and release program. By no means would I prefer to be married, but that last effort to save a marriage, even if the end was inevitable, would have meant the sun to me.

He could have shown that last stitch of love while I stained pillows, sheets, divorce papers with tears. It would have shown me the last five years meant something to him. It would have kept one more chunk a part of me. He’ll catch another fish, and maybe this time he won’t let her go so easily.

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