Ben and I are from the same small town and started dating our senior year of high school.
In the beginning, my parents didn’t approve of him. But somehow Ben won them over. Instead of trying to pull us apart, they began pushing us together. The fire that probably would have burned out on its own was stoked by everyone around us. He proposed the night of his law school graduation, to the utter delight of my parents and his. I got swept up in the moment and set aside any reservations I might have had.
We had big moment after big moment: graduations from high school, then college, and finally law school for Ben. Then the big, splashy wedding that took a year to plan. But when the dust settled, it was clear Ben was at the start of a new and exciting career, while I was expected to be just like my mother—a dutiful wife who volunteered for worthwhile causes and joined the boards of charitable foundations.
And somewhere along the way, those flames had turned to dying embers, and no amount of gasoline would bring them back.
By the time I realized I’d made a mistake, it felt impossible to do anything about it. I had no idea how to even begin to break the rules I’d followed my entire life. My dad gave me a charmed, privileged upbringing, then passed the torch to Ben. I had been conditioned at an early age to believe that if someone provided you a nice life then they were owed the right to make every decision as to how you lived it. My parents wouldn’tagree to help me leave my husband unless I had a very, very good reason. To them, marriage was until death. You rejoiced in the good times and suffered through the bad, but you never quit.
I think back to the one time I tried to talk to Mom about how I was feeling. I was staying with them while Dad and Ben were away on a hunting trip. We were at the breakfast table when I told her I didn’t want to stay married to Ben.
Her response left no room for argument. “What on earth are you talking about. Of course you’re going to stay married to Ben. You’re not going to humiliate your father and me by becoming a divorcée.” By her reaction, you’d think I’d just told her I was about to work the pole at one of the strip clubs on Bourbon Street.
I knew in that moment there was no chance my parents would support me financially if I left him.
So I stayed, and Ben made plans for us, a timetable for our future with benchmark goals. He never once asked if these were goals I shared.
Open his own practice.Check.
Hit his annual income goal.Check.
Build or buy the perfect house.Check.
Start a family.
It’s no coincidence the moment he mentioned that next step was when that feeling in my gut began to grow.
Once the house remodel was finished and the perfect pieces of furniture graced every meticulously designed room, I knew he’d be anxious to check that next box. While I may feel stuck now, it would be nothing compared to when we had kids. My search through Ben’s things was fueled by the desire to find…anything…that would force me to act.Something I could hold up to him, to my parents, and say,See this? This thing he did? This is the reason I have to leave him.Something that would trigger the clause in our prenup.
So I continued my search.
And then one night I got lucky.
I shift in my seat, my memories scattering as I’m forced to concentrate on the road now that the traffic has picked up. The exit for the interstate that will take me back to Baton Rouge is quickly approaching. It’s been twenty minutes and there’s only about fifteen more to go until I’m home. I check the time. Everything is still on schedule. By now, Aubrey should be at the festival in the park next to the St. Francisville Inn.
I lose a little time as I battle the ever-present Baton Rouge traffic. A few notifications have popped up on my iPad, which is sitting on the passenger seat, but a quick glance tells me all of them can wait. Although I had to leave my phone with Aubrey since that’s the device Ben tracks, I didn’t trust her enough to let her into my phone or handle my communications. I’ll take care of that myself with my iPad.
Finally, I’m pulling into the lot of a small market on Perkins that’s close to our street. While it’s not perfect, I decided I would stash the car here and jog to my house. Our street is off one of the busiest roads in the heart of Baton Rouge. Some houses in our neighborhood can easily be seen from the road, while others, like mine, are tucked much further back, the live oaks and dense foliage screening it from the street. But all of us have privacy from one another.
There is more traffic on our street than there should be, given how few of us live on it, but it’s a cut-through of sorts between two busy areas that has been exploited more and more over the last several years. Ben has even drafted a petition to the city to have one end blocked off,making it a dead end, but it will take more than the full support of the residents to pull that off.
While the constant flow of cars won’t make anyone think twice if this old Honda drives by, the same can’t be said if I park it on the street in front of a neighbor’s house. I put on an LSU ball cap and oversize sunglasses before I exit the car, then start off toward my house. Even though I’m parking in a place I’m allowed to park and going to a house I have every right to enter, it still feels like I’m breaking the law.
I jog past the first few houses with a steady pace and a watchful eye to see if anyone who may recognize me is out and about. We socialized with our neighbors on a few occasions right after we moved in, but Ben and I both found it to be more exhausting than entertaining.
The first question every woman asked me was:When are you starting a family?Really, it was the only question anyone asked me. They took my vague answers as an invitation to give me their thoughts on the subject. And when they weren’t talking directly to me about procreation, every other conversation was about kids and schools and after-school activities and sports for kids and kids and kids.
Ben didn’t have it quite as bad as I did, but he did complain that most of the questions directed toward him had to do with the high-profile cases he was in the middle of defending. Apparently, they would know of at least one of Ben’s clients in a six-degrees-of-separation kind of way and wanted whatever juicy details he would give them.
Both of us began to gently brush off future invitations. It was one of the few things we agreed on lately.
As I approach my driveway, I take one last quick look around then increase my pace. Don’t need anyone being a Good Samaritan and calling the cops about an intruder.
As soon as I know I’m hidden from view, I slow to a walk and study our house as if I’m seeing it for the first time. It’s a gorgeous structure made of rough-cut stones, with a steep slate roof and copper gutters, painstakingly remodeled to its former glory. A house anyone would love to have. A house that could grace the pages ofSouthern Living.
But that’s the problem.
Ben wanted it to be a showplace, so every piece of furniture, every picture on the wall, every book on the shelf was chosen by an interior designer. While I was involved in the process, he got final approval. The end result is beautiful, but there is nothing inside that reflects my personality or, really, Ben’s either.
