After twenty years, he claimed he needed space and demanded a divorce. I signed without a word. Months later, as he celebrated his engagement to his secretary at our old vacation spot, I arrived unannounced. “Congratulations,” I said, handing him an envelope. His father’s will had a clause: divorce me, lose everything. His fiancée’s scream was priceless.
“I need space.” Three simple words that shattered twenty years of marriage on a Tuesday evening at Giovani’s, our favorite restaurant—not “I’m unhappy,” not “we need to talk,” but the coward’s prelude to abandonment, delivered between the chicken parmesan and tiramisu. Robert didn’t even have the decency to meet my eyes when he…
