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He Versus She

 

Although pretending otherwise, he wanted a divorce from her long before he got it. He only
held their marriage together for as long as he did because he feared a divorce would separate him from his children; destroy their sense of family; and split apart the lives of the two halves that made them feel whole, wanted, and protected.

 

And so, he tried his best to tolerate her irritability,
nitpicking, accusations, and ceaseless nagging.
But with each try, frustration and resentment
swelled inside him and exploded into rage,
which invariably prompted her to threaten him
with separation from his children, the one thing
that gave her decisive leverage in their marriage.

 

After each confrontation, he calmed himself,
groveled, and continued his pretension. But little
by little, his ability to hold the marriage together
and spare himself and his children the inevitable
ran its course. And so, he ended the marriage
while she portrayed herself as the long-suffering
victim and insisted their failure was all his fault.

 

 

Copyright © 2017 Frank Zahn. Published in Adelaide Literary Magazine, Number 70, November 2024, https://adelaidebooks.org/eulah-mae.

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