It is evening in our farmhouse, and I am having dinner with my husband and our teenage daughter.
asserted
I → have → husband
He cooked as usual; tonight it was shepherd’s pie, an apple crumble and custard.
asserted
it → cook → ?
I will load the dishwasher and our daughter will wipe the table.
asserted
daughter → load → table
From the outside, it looks like a normal Sunday night.
asserted
it → look → night
Except my husband and I have been divorced for three months, our daughter is being treated by a doctor for anxiety – and I am more than a year into a new relationship which makes me feel accepted, overjoyed, loved.
asserted
me → divorce → relationship
It’s all so fraught that at dinner I want to leave the kitchen, passing the family photos on the wall – the one of us on our wedding day has cracked glass after I threw it at him – and punch myself in the face.
asserted
I → ’ → face
We are forced to live together while we try to sell in a stagnant housing market.
asserted
we → force → market
We can’t afford to rent separately, so here we are, following the small and familiar trails of our old life – all the while desperately longing to be free.
asserted
we → afford → life
I go to the marital bedroom overlooking the garden.
asserted
I → go → garden
My wedding dress is in the cupboard in shreds because I tore it up, though I can’t bring myself to throw it away yet.
asserted
I → tear → it
He goes to a tiny pink room at the back with a single bed with our daughter’s childlike bed linen on it.
asserted
He → go → it
She upgraded to a bigger room, and grown-up bedding, but he didn’t.
asserted
he → upgrade → room
I offered him the large spare bedroom, but he doesn’t want it.
asserted
he → offer → it
I take this personally, as evidence that he doesn’t want to be happy and never did; that he doesn’t want anything nice for himself, or anyone else.
asserted
he → take → himself
We can’t afford to rent separately, so here we are, writes Pippa Richmond (picture posed by models)
I turn off my light and read on my phone in the dark because I don’t want him to come in and talk to me when he goes up to bed, which he did when we first separated.
asserted
we → afford → which
I try not to think about how excited we were when we bought this house a decade ago: how hopeful we were, the plans we had.
asserted
we → try → house
And how we fell apart, first slowly, and then fast.
asserted
we → fall → ?
We had known each other at university, when I was wild, and he was shy.
asserted
he → know → university
But we didn’t marry until we were in our mid-30s.
asserted
we → marry → mid-30s
I was in a disastrous love affair with a married man – to be fair, I did not know he was married when we began – who I could not give up.
uncertain
I → know → who
Then one day I realised the yearning for a baby would not go away and I had no future with him.
asserted
I → realise → him
I think now I wanted to prove I could have a real relationship with someone who could be there for me.
uncertain
who → think → me
I bumped into my soon-to-be husband again while shopping in central London after not seeing him for more than a decade.
asserted
I → bump → decade
It didn’t matter that he smoked – despite a heart condition – and had almost no income as a freelance writer.
asserted
he → matter → writer
I had a good job and he would get one.
asserted
he → have → one
With what seemed like the luck of the gods, I got pregnant very quickly.
asserted
I → seem → gods
That’s when it all began to fall apart in earnest.
asserted
it → ’ → ?
I had a terrible labour, and instead of pulling together we shouted at each other on the ward – the nurses were appalled – and I came home shell-shocked.
asserted
I → have → ward
In the first few years of our daughter’s life, I would scream at him, looking for a reaction, for anything – but he retreated into himself.
asserted
he → scream → himself
He left the house looking like a bomb site every day, earned almost no money and spent compulsively.
asserted
He → leave → money
When I lost my good job in marketing, we were broke.
asserted
we → lose → marketing
There were happy times with our daughter, of course, but that happy, functional life you dream of when you think of marriage – the thing you build together – never happened.
asserted
you → be → marriage
We had lived on hope, and that had gone.
asserted
that → live → hope
I retreated from him physically after the birth.
asserted
I → retreat → birth
I would lie beside him willing myself to reach out to him.
asserted
I → lie → him
But I couldn’t, and our marriage began to die.
asserted
marriage → begin → ?
We almost never had sex, because I felt he was a stranger.
asserted
he → have → sex
It was as if something was removed from me when I had our daughter.
asserted
I → remove → daughter
Perhaps trying to paper over the cracks, we moved to the ‘dream house’ in the country.
asserted
we → try → country
I took all the work I could find, and he didn’t work at all, though he looked for admin jobs.
uncertain
he → take → jobs
…and 113 more, not listed.
The Aporia
