And the truth shall set you free.

The door banged closed. The kettle whistled, boiling over onto the stove. I stood looking out the kitchen window and tried hard not to cry.

Just like that you were gone. Just like that my children now came from a broken home. But it was not just like that, it had been years, years of secrets, of lies, lack of communication.

I could smell her on your clothes; see her in your eyes.

I don’t know the date, time or the month; you stopped looking at me in that way.

The way you had looked at me when we first met. The way your eyes followed my movements around a room, the way you noticed my perfume, the curve of my waist, how I wore my hair. But it stopped and it felt like you did not notice me at all, but I don’t know the day, the time or month, it just seemed to stop.

I tried, many times, to fix my hair, paint my face and dress nice before you would arrive home. Putting children to bed, long often lonely days of school runs, tantrums and play dates. Shopping, cooking and all that comes with being a mom.

Trying to be the girl you first met, the one who you told me I no longer was. Full of energy, sexy and had something interesting to say.  Now my days filled only with the mundane, the routine of being a mom.

You came home later with each passing week. My heart breaking silently as I learnt to lie. Lie to our children about why you could never come to school plays and football, parent meetings and nativity plays.

I heard she is much younger, pretty and sweet.

So I stand at the window, kettle boiling over on the stove, scared of telling our children that now you have gone.

But a thought comes to me just then, you have not been here for a long time anyway and I am better off alone.  You were right all along, I am not that girl that you first met, I have changed as a person and from a young girl a woman has grown.

She will also grow older, and may not always have those curves, will you leave and find another once that day comes to her.

I deserve better and so do your kids.

I make my tea, sit now and calmly decide that you are a stone I tripped over on the journey of life, well rid of a person who no longer wishes to have a women, not a girl as his wife

We will be okay; I have survived this far along the road.

And I wonder as I now sip my tea, if regret will one day darken your door?  

Old age will visit not only me, and as that young girl grows into a woman, it will become more difficult for you to just up and leave.