There was the time during Bernard and the time after.

The time during was beautiful, sweet. I was happy in ways I did not stop to question.

Five years ago, we worked on the same project. He handled the titles aspect and I was the architect. He called me more often than necessary, texted even when he had no reason to. Anyone who has ever been chased by a man knows exactly what that kind of effort means. It was more than friendliness. It was interest. It was intention. One day he asked me out and I went. By then I already knew he liked me, and I had grown fond of him too. I was lonely, and my heart had been empty for too long. He filled a space I did not even realise was aching until he began to talk to me the way he did.

He did not come exactly the way I expected. Not single, not childless. I could not present him to my family or my friends the way I would have presented Jacob. Unlike Jacob, he was not the one who held my gaze from across the room. That was Bernard who did. So I accepted Bernard the way you accept a chair when your feet hurt. Not because it is your dream, but because it holds you.

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Bernard loved me, truly. He gave me everything I needed. Every day with him felt like a stand-up show. I would laugh until my stomach hurt and tiny tears fell from my eyes. Even in the middle of a serious conversation he would just put it out there, “you are my peace and home,” and I would smile. Such a sweet thing to say. Only it was not so.

In our reality, I was not his home. His home had a wife who was a medical doctor, children who adored the life they were building together. In our reality, his children called me Aunty, the one who wore protective headgear and went to do hard work with daddy. They knew me as the funny aunty, the one daddy called to help finish their homework over the phone. I checked their spellings and praised them for being brilliant. I called them my loves and meant it. Imagine building tenderness inside another woman’s house and calling it normal.

His wife was the villain in our story. The one who would not leave no matter what, no matter how many fights he picked, no matter how many anniversaries and birthdays he deliberately missed. She stayed. He said she was a bully who believed that because she was a doctor, her profession was better than the business that was actually keeping the family afloat. Arrogant with his friends, his family, his workers. I told myself that even though they did not say it, they were rooting for us. At least that is what I was made to believe. While she shrank him, I lifted him up, took him to the clouds and back. I know how that sounds. But when a man lives like a dog in his own home, he will crawl toward whoever offers him a soft voice and a place to exhale. He would say sometimes, wistfully, “if I were not married.” As if marriage were a weather condition and not a decision.

We were faithful to the lie we had created together. Then one day everything shattered. He sat across from me and said, practically, “Georgina is pregnant.” I felt my heart stop. My vision blurred. I could not breathe. I asked him calmly, too calmly for the storm inside me, how. He stammered.

That should have been my cue. But I wanted us to work, so the very next day I called him. I told him I knew it was hard, making another child with her, and not to worry because I would be there. I forgave him and asked only that he not go to her again, that I could not bear it. He promised. He did the sign of the cross. “Boys scout honour, I promise it will not happen again, I will not even sleep in the same room with her.”

Bernard normally kept his promises, so I accepted the defeat and wore my hat as the auntie. At some point I was angling for godmother. I shared in their joy. I started buying baby things. I suggested names for the child. After every performance I patted myself on the back. You have done well. Soon he will be yours enough. You are a very good person. After all, I sent him home to his pregnant wife and children. Some side pieces do not even do that.

The time after Bernard began the day he forgot himself and told me about a recent shuperu escapade with her. Described it so vividly, as if I was supposed to be there. I was folding sheets that day. Quietly I walked him out and shut the door on him while he was begging me to wait.

It’s Not God’s Law For A Man To Apologize To A Woman

The time after was the day he did not return. I expected him to keep begging. I expected drama, suffering. But he did not come back. He put his family first. I was humiliated. I hated myself so much, too much to want to be alive.

I am 52 now. Bernard is the third married man in a row I have dated. It is not entirely my fault. The single men I liked were always after my money, so the married ones felt safer somehow. They already belonged somewhere, so I thought they would not try to take from me in the same way. I know how that sounds too.

In the time after him, I began to see things I had refused to see before. How he had been quietly signalling all along that he was not going anywhere, he was not going to leave his beautiful, successful wife or smart children. I did not hear it loudly enough.

In the time after Bernard, a lot has been revealed to me. Men are not leaving their wives anytime soon.

—Fmr Side

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