When Lisa realizes that her marriage with Mark is on the rocks, she accepts that his new job opportunity may be the fresh start they need. But when they move, Lisa learns the truth about Mark. For the past nine years, I’ve been in what I thought was a loving marriage. Mark and I had married young, straight out of high school. All we knew was each other.
“We’ll grow together, Lisa,” he said. “We’ll study and build up careers together.” I believed him. And for the longest time, it seemed that Mark stuck to his promises. Two years into our marriage, we had Emma, our daughter. Now, 7 and feisty, she’s the light of our lives. But for the past few years, I’ve begun to watch my marriage fall apart in front of my eyes. Mark criticized my appearance. “You’ve just let yourself go, Lisa,” he said. “Always in those frumpy clothes. Do you think that you’ll keep the spark alive like that?” He accused me of not being a good enough mother because I worked too much — although I worked from home. Emma was always around me, except when she was at school. “You’re always behind that computer screen. Do you even give Emma enough attention? It doesn’t seem like it. She’s always alone when I come home from work.” At first, I used to retaliate. I would speak my feelings to Mark. But eventually, I just tired of fighting with him. “Do what you want,” I said one evening as I went to put Emma to bed.
Things took a turn when Mark suddenly became more tolerable. He was nice. At first, I attributed it to him getting a new job offer in another city. I didn’t mind the move. I could work from anywhere, and Emma was only in the first grade. “It’s a new start,” Mark said, helping me box up our lives. We moved, hoping for that fresh start — and for things to get better between us. Mark enrolled Emma in a new school that he had researched in the weeks leading to the big move. He seemed to have everything in order. “I’m serious about this move, honey,” he said, giving Emma a juice box. “This is going to be great.” But a few weeks after Emma started at school, she started coming home upset, refusing to tell me why. Then, one day, I found her crying in her room. “Honey, what happened?” I asked, worried.
“I don’t want Miss Baker to be my mother! I want you to be my mother!” Emma sobbed. A chill ran through me. Miss Baker was Emma’s teacher. “Why would she become your mother?” I asked. Emma looked at me with large tears dropping from her face. She shook her head. “Honey, tell me,” I pressed. My daughter sighed deeply, as if the weight of the entire world rested on her little shoulders. “Yesterday, when Dad picked me up from school, Miss Baker told me to wait by the door while she spoke to Dad. I didn’t hear everything, but I did hear her saying that she’ll be a better mom to me… Dad laughed when she said that.”
The floor might as well have fallen away from beneath me. The accusations, the move, the sudden niceness — it all clicked into a horrifying picture. My husband was having an affair. That evening, after making sure that Emma was asleep, I poured Mark a drink. He accepted it with a smile, oblivious to the storm brewing inside me. “So,” I began. “Miss Baker seems really good with Emma.”
“Really?” he asked, his eyes lighting up. “I knew Emma liked her…”
“Enough for Miss Baker to be her new mom?” I asked. “What’s going on, and don’t you dare lie to me.” Mark’s face drained of color, guilt written all over him. His confession poured out, officially ruining our marriage. He had been having an affair before we moved, but the woman wanted more from him. So, he broke it off when the new job opportunity came up. But it hadn’t taken him long — he and Miss Baker had been seeing each other for two weeks before Emma overheard their conversation. The next day, when I dropped Emma off at school, I confronted Miss Baker about the affair. She denied everything. I transferred Emma to another school. She needed to be protected and cherished, not be caught in the middle of her father’s extramarital affairs.
A divorce was inevitable, and I found that while it was painful, I was relieved. Mark had destroyed us a long time ago, it was just time to end our marriage officially. We are a few months into the divorce and Emma is my focus — with constant reassurance that she is loved unconditionally. She’s forgotten about Miss Baker, and loves her new teacher. Mark is free to come and go as he pleases with Emma, as she is the most important factor in our lives.