Through the double doors ahead, I caught sight of the face of the person with whom I’d shared more than a third of my life, staring back at me. It was the first time I’d seen my ex-husband in nine months. I hesitated—just for a fraction of a second—a microscopic urge to turn around and flee. Then I inhaled deeply, steadied myself, and kept walking.
My mind began cataloging the familiar details of his presence, as if scanning a barcode to retrieve old data stored deep in my consciousness: the same oversized jeans and well-worn T-shirt, the same gingersnap-colored beard, the same bashful, unassuming posture. I joined him at the back of the Starbucks line, managing a polite smile and a soft hello as I stepped past him.
“How are you?” we asked each other in near unison, our voices careful and rehearsed, before I blurted out, “I kinda forgot you were a real person.”
He gave a timid chuckle and held my gaze for a few lingering seconds before mumbling, “Sorry.”
Sorry—for what? my inner voice snapped back. Ruining my life? After all, it had been nine months since the night I came home from work on an unremarkable Friday, exhausted and ready to disappear into a quiet weekend with my husband—my refuge—when he casually detonated my world with, “I have a girlfriend.” Her house was where he would be staying that night. His backpack was packed. His motorcycle was ready. The night he walked out was the first night he had ever spent away from me.
Maybe he was sorry for moving cross-country with me just three months before starting his affair, placing two thousand miles between me and my family, my lifelong friends, and every support system I had ever known. When he left, I hadn’t yet built roots in our new home. I barely knew anyone. Losing my husband and best friend, while being so far from everyone who loved me, plunged me into a bottomless loneliness that threatened to swallow me whole as I sat alone, wondering, What am I supposed to do with the rest of my life when I no longer want to exist at all?
Or perhaps his apology reflected a deeper awareness of my most fragile parts. He knew better than anyone about my depression and panic attacks—the days I couldn’t leave my bed, the hours lost to dissociation and emotional numbness. Maybe he understood that the path he forced me onto was rocky and disorienting, a cruel landscape for a mind that craves peace and stability.
All of these thoughts—condensed versions of them—flashed through me in a single second as I stood there smiling, meeting his eyes. “Sorry for what?” I asked.
“I didn’t mean to run into you here,” he said.
“Well, we both work here,” I replied, gesturing toward the campus visible through the windows. “It was bound to happen eventually.”
Then, without warning, a realization surfaced and escaped my mouth. “I bought that shirt for you,” I said. I had ordered it while lying beside him in bed on our wedding night, planning to surprise him when we returned from our honeymoon.
He nodded. “I know you did. I heard you got promoted. Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” I said.
When my marriage ended, my life fractured in multiple directions. Professionally, I buried myself in my work, becoming obsessed with productivity and success. I worked endless overtime and earned my first promotion the same month my divorce was finalized. I needed the money—my household income had been cut by more than half—but more than that, I needed an anchor, a reason to keep moving. Even in those early weeks, when I ducked into bathroom stalls to sob between meetings, my job gave me structure and a place to exist outside my grief.
At work, I could interact with people, accomplish tasks, and briefly forget the weight pressing on my chest. I experienced something similar in the earliest moments after waking each morning: I knew I felt awful, but it took a few seconds for the memories to catch up and remind me why. Those seconds—time outside of time—were a strange mercy, my brain sprinting through memory to regroup and survive.
Personally, I oscillated between highs and lows. I built a tribe with surprising ease. People with their own heartbreaks recognized something familiar in mine, and together we formed sacred bonds, healing one another through laughter, tears, and shared understanding. My pain stripped me of pretense. I couldn’t hide behind forced positivity or curated happiness when my wounds were still so raw and visible.
At the same time, I foolishly tried dating far too soon. I was hurting, depleted, and unsure of my worth, and I attracted men who mirrored that belief back to me. Still, those experiences taught me invaluable lessons—how to set boundaries strong enough to protect my heart, yet flexible enough to allow growth.
I reflected on all of this as I watched my former husband order his coffee ahead of me: black, like mine, but the smallest size, while I’ve always committed fully to caffeine excess. I studied him again. During our brief exchange, he smiled politely, appraised me as I spoke, shrugged modestly at his own words. It suddenly struck me that his timidity wasn’t caused by this encounter.
This was who he had always been—the man I spent over a decade loving. The nice guy who never took up space, adored by my friends and family because he was so agreeable and nonthreatening. The man who played the devoted husband right up until the very end, quietly packing his exit behind the scenes.
As I took in his slouched posture and quiet resignation, even remembering the cowardly email he sent after I begged him to try marriage counseling—“I deserve to be as happy as I possibly can be”—I felt no anger. How could I? We were simply two people in our thirties, living out the consequences of our choices.
Thirty-four-year-old me would never look twice at someone so consumed by shrinking sadness. Yet without the love I shared—and lost—with this man, thirty-four-year-old me wouldn’t exist at all.
“So, how are you?” he asked again before leaving.
“I’m good,” I said, smiling as I met his eyes one final time. “I survived.”
