Page 98 of The Plus One Pact

"Well-practiced," Romeo offers.

I shake my head. It really doesn't. Which is strange. With my ex, it did. I didn't like the hot sex he'd had before me. Even if he wouldn't talk about it in detail.

But I guess that was different too. When we were having good sex, I didn't think about it. When we weren't—

But then I probably shouldn't keep comparing Romeo to my ex.

No doubt, that's a sign I need more time before I enter a real relationship.

Fake relationships only for now.

Romeo takes the drinks to his family. I move a little closer to Cynthia. To give her an opening.

"Listen, if you ever want to talk about marriage or commitment or anything, I'm here," I say. "As a friend, not a professional."

"You were married before."

It's not really a question, but I nod anyway. "They say failure is the best teacher."

She smiles, but there's a sadness to it. "I don't judge you for it. I'm sure some do, but I understand relationships are complicated. I just wonder… about what I want out of life. If this is a good deal. As a woman, you know?"

"A hundred percent." It's hard to explain it in simple words.

Marriage is supposed to be an even partnership, but even when men try really, really hard, they rarely manage to get there. They weren't raised to consider people's emotional needs, to clean the house, to co-operate. They were raised to fight, to win arguments rather than listen, to avoid hard conversations, to feel only anger.

Even if they did give exactly fifty percent, they wouldn't get there. They'd have to give sixty or seventy or eighty percent. Even a perfect, giving man can't be the perfect husband, because the world just isn't fair.

Marriage, heterosexual marriage, of course, is a better deal for men than for women.

Women are the ones who are expected to put everyone ahead of them. To put their partner's job first, their kids' needs first, their aging relatives first.

When a parent gets sick, people expect the daughters in the family to tend to them. When someone needs to stay home from school, it's the mother. When there's a problem, because a guy isn't talking about his feelings, his wife needs to stay patient and caring.

But what happens when you reach the end of that? When you're patient, and caring, and compromising, and things don't change?

You can only twist yourself so far before you break.

That's what happened to me.

I don't know how to do it again. How to be a person who loves.

But why do I keep asking myself that? This isn't a real relationship. I'm not expected to love.

It's all for the benefit of his family and my podcast material. Or my sex life.

"It's hard," I say. "Even when you love someone a lot. I liked being married for a long time. Then one day, I didn't. It was strange, like it changed out of nowhere, but it was happening a little bit at a time, for a long time."

"But you liked it at first?" she asks.

I nod. "The feeling of the word husband, the maturity if afforded me, the shared health insurance, the forever of it. I didn't believe people who said it would change everything, but it did. It made our connection deeper. But it also made it more suffocating. Forever goes both ways."

She nods and looks to the door.

Romeo steps inside, ready to work.

Conversation over.

Right. This is their wedding week. Not my week to end the wedding. But if that's really what she wants, isn't it for the best, for everyone?