Teeter Totter

“We gave it our all. These kids, they’ll soon realize that this was done with their best—”

“We took vows, for better or for worse, remember that part, Mary?!” Robert continues his long-winded rant. “Tearing our family apart is incredibly selfish. Once more, you’re only thinking about yourself.”

He wasn’t entirely wrong. Couples do vow to stick together. They’ll even take such a pact as that in front of God, in a chapel, filled to the rafters with family and community. But the economy is now beginning to rebound, and my situation has changed — so has the necessity to get this divorce moving.

My intention to leave Robert plunged when the recession struck and slowly rose as the recovery began. I have had my eye on a secretarial job. Saving up for the filing is now within reach.

Experts in the gazette quickly claimed that the drop in divorces between man and woman was the silver lining to this Great Depression. Celebrating such malarky as: ‘Tough times such as these are now responsible for the pulling together of wives and husbands!’

It had the opposite effect on us.

As living through this downturn became bleaker daily, it seemed to impact Robert in a gendered way. It threatened his control in the economic domain. From that point on, there had been sharp spikes in his ill-treatment.

 He wasn’t a partner to begin with. But this? It just exacerbated all his ugly.

The wind had been knocked out of me day after day throughout this recession. I’m now prepared to leave this life of man because he forces me downward. Catapulting myself high enough to see the outside world will now be my sole castle in the air. This is now the only vow worth keeping.