All I can say is I wish that she would’ve changed sooner. I wish that she didn’t wait until we had spent 20 years of our life together. Because now, I feel hopeless.
I’m 52 years old. There’s no turning back the clocks. There’s no hoping she falls back in love with me. She hates what age has done to me. She hates that I’m losing my hair. She hates the way my face is starting to sag. And because she has learned to hate my appearance, it’s made it harder for her to look past my personality flaws.
My irritability. My lack of energy. My lack of libido. I’d lost my ability to “woo” her more and more with each passing year.
When her shoulder grew cold, all I could blame was myself. When our conversations became dry, all I could do was blame myself. And when she stopped even wanting to kiss me anymore, again, all I could blame was myself.
I tried doing things that made her fall in love with me in the first place. I’d try and dance with her, but she’d feel how rigid I’d become and push me away. I’d surprise her with flowers and find them in the garbage a few hours later.
I was lost. I was hopeless. And I hated myself. I hated that I didn’t have my youth anymore. I hated that I didn’t have my wife anymore. I just wanted for things to go back to the way they were.
Those thoughts kept me up at night while my wife left me alone in bed to stay up and chat on the phone with a mystery friend. I’d caught glimpses of the conversations before. I knew it was a man. I was just too tired to care.
I couldn’t even hold her tighter when I knew, I knew she was slipping through my hands. All I could do was feel sorry for myself and stare at my reflection in the mirror.
The bags under my eyes. The long hairs in my nose and ears. And the wrinkles. God, the wrinkles bothered me more than anything.
My wife would catch me in these fits of judgement, and all she ever offered was disgusted stares and stifled scoffs. Sometimes it’d happen while she was on the phone with her mystery friend. There were times where I’d hear him laughing, and all I could do was cry.
To take my mind off things, I figured I’d take up walking. Just roaming the neighborhood. Clearing my mind while I listened to the birds. It turned into a routine, which, unfortunately, my wife memorized.
I’d come back from my walks someday to find her hurrying to get dressed. Spraying Febreze with a look of guilt on her face as I moseyed up the stairs in my own home.
I’d never found her with anybody, but I knew. My wife was older, but she was as stunning as ever. A woman wants what a woman wants. Sadly, she just didn’t want me anymore.
That’s why I set up the cameras.
I wanted proof to at least make the divorce easy on me.
However, unfortunately, it would prove difficult creating a case for myself based on what I captured. Because what I found on those cameras in my bedroom wasn’t some hotshot from the bar. He wasn’t some slicked-back boy toy for my wife to have her way with.
What I saw on those cameras…
Was unmistakably me.
Not me me, obviously.
This was me at 25 years old.
My hair was full and thick.
My body was firm and limber.
And my teeth were as pearly white as they were all those years ago as I smiled at myself in the camera before kissing my wife.
His eyes were dark and menacing. He bit playfully at my wife’s neck before reaching behind her to unstrap her bra. And just as her gown fell to the ground, the feed went black.
I didn’t even know how to confront my wife. What would I even say? All that came to mind was one simple question.
“I just want to know why you don’t love me anymore.”
She stared at me. Eyes softening for a moment before turning dark and hardening again.
With a deep breath, my wife replied.
“I love who you used to be.”
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