My husband’s mistress thought she’d steal him from me and take my house too.

“He wouldn’t try to take your house.” she insisted.

“He already tried,” I said.

“He put it in writing.” I added.

She cried sharp and offended and then she hung up. My hands were shaking afterward but I also felt lighter like I’d finally stopped auditioning for the role of niece daughter-in-law.

A couple of days later my husband asked to come get his things. The phrasing alone made my teeth hurt.

His things in my house like he was the one being inconvenienced. My lawyer told me not to be alone with him.

My father told me the same. My best friend volunteered to stand in the doorway with a bat and I loved her for it but we chose the calmer option.

A scheduled pickup in broad daylight with my father and my best friend present and with everything already boxed. I packed his clothes into cardboard boxes and labeled them in a way that felt petty and satisfying work shirts shoes random chargers the blender he swore he’d use.

I put the boxes in the garage so he wouldn’t have to step through the house. Because I couldn’t stand the idea of him breathing in my kitchen like he still belonged there.

When he arrived he looked like he’d slept in his car red eyes wrinkled clothes that injured posture men use when they want you to feel sorry for them.

“I can’t believe you did this,” he said immediately voice thick like I’d committed a crime against him.

My father stood beside me and spoke.

“Get your boxes.” my father said.

My husband flinched at my father’s tone then turned to me trying for softness.

“Blythe please can we just talk for a minute?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

He glanced at the house.

“You changed the locks.” he said.

“I did,” I said.

He laughed once bitter.

“So that’s it 2 years and you just throw me out.” he said.

“You threw yourself out,” I said and my voice surprised me.

I wasn’t shaking I wasn’t pleading I sounded like someone reading a diagnosis. His face tightened.

“She meant nothing,” he snapped switching lanes fast.

“It was just,” he started.

“Stop,” my best friend said.

“Get your boxes.” she added.

The Final Pickup

He carried them to his car in angry jerks like every box weighed 100 lb. Halfway through he set one down and looked at me again desperate.

“You’re really going to do this?” he whispered.

I wanted to say “I didn’t want this.”. I wanted to say “I loved you.”.

I wanted to say I’m terrified. Instead I said the only thing that mattered.

“Yes.” I said.

His eyes flashed.

“You’re going to regret it,” he muttered then slammed his trunk like it was punctuation and drove away.

After he left I sat on the garage step and shook so hard my teeth clicked. My father sat down beside me and didn’t say anything for a minute then he spoke.

“I’m proud of you.” he said.

And for the first time since the restaurant I cried in a way that felt like release instead of drowning. The first therapy appointment happened the next morning because after the pickup I realized my body was running the show.

I walked into the waiting room thinking I’d be composed and instead I cried because the receptionist smiled kindly and my nervous system took it as permission to fall apart. Therapy didn’t fix me it didn’t give me a perfect script but my therapist said something helpful.

“Your nervous system is acting like you’re still bracing for impact because betrayal is an emotional injury that’s normal.” she said.

Hearing my chaos described in calm words helped more than I expected. She asked me what I did when I felt panic.

I told her honestly that I checked locks that I reread screenshots that I scrolled messages like if I stopped the truth would dissolve.

“That’s your brain trying to create certainty,” she said.

“It’s not silly it’s survival we just have to give it healthier anchors.” she added.

So we built stupid little anchors a grounding technique where I name things I can see things I can feel things I can hear. A breathing pattern that felt fake at first and then annoyingly worked.

A rule that I don’t reread messages after a certain hour because it keeps my adrenaline high. And a plan for when my brain tries to time travel to that restaurant window.

I stand up I put my feet on the floor. I tell myself out loud what day it is where I am and that he is not in my house.

Work got harder before it got easier. I thought the hospital would be a distraction.

Sometimes it was sometimes it was a mirror. I’d be standing at the nurses’ station telling someone “Take a breath we’ll figure it out.”.

While my own body was screaming “You are barely holding it together.”. I snapped at a nurse one day for being late and the way her eyes widened made me feel sick immediately.

She didn’t deserve my anger she was a tired person in the same broken system. I apologized later in the breakroom and she accepted but the guilt sat in my chest for days.

My boss pulled me aside again.

“You don’t have to explain but I need you to take care of yourself before you burn out.” my boss said.

I wanted to laugh because burnout was the air we breathed but I also didn’t want to be proud in a way that killed me. I took a few days of leave not because it fixed anything but because it gave my body a chance to stop shaking.

During those days my mother tried to do what she always does when conflict makes her uncomfortable. She tried to smooth it over with politeness.

“We should talk to her parents,” she said one afternoon while she folded my towels like she was auditioning for domestic sainthood.

“They’re mortified they called they said they didn’t know.” she added.

I stared at my towels.