How Snooping Helped Me Survive Divorce

by Jane Warshaw

“Well, it must be Marion,” I concluded. Marion was a woman he worked with at Citibank, and I’d once said to him, “If I were less secure I’d be jealous of Marion because you’re always saying how great she is.” His answer then had been, “If you ever saw her face, you’d never be jealous.”

But he must have decided that whatever he thought of her face, it wasn’t that important. Or maybe she made him feel better than I did—telling him how clever and smart he was. In truth, I thought he was smart, and handsome, and a good father. He would walk around cradling our baby on his shoulder to comfort her when she was crying; he would tuck her in at night with her stuffed donkey, Nelson, and then make a cup of cocoa for me.

But now he told me he loved Marion and wanted to be with her. He offered no other explanation for his dissatisfaction in our marriage: nothing I had done wrong or could possibly fix, nothing that was negotiable. As he walked out the door, he told me, “Don’t write us off, we’ll get help.”

I don’t know what help he had in mind because he refused to see a marriage counselor or any other kind of mediator. He said he’d be staying with mutual friends who lived near us. Instead, he moved in with Marion.

Getting married had been his idea. I’d just wanted to live together. If things didn’t work out I wanted to be able to call a mover, not a lawyer. But he had insisted on it. We’d been living together for two years when he gave me an ultimatum.