Last night, we were finally going to bed at the same time. She wasn’t going out to a party, wasn’t going back in to work, and wasn’t staying up to read Harry Potter. I come up to the bedroom, find her dressed, laundry basket in hands, and her pillow on the top.

She headed for the door, and I asked why she had her pillow. She said she was taking it downstairs. I asked her if she was sleeping on the couch, surprised, and she answered with, “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to sleep in the same bed.”

The last time that we had slept next to each other, even after she had stopped wearing her rings, we had both slept as we had before. Undressed, and close to each other. She had inched toward me, and cuddled me. I was taken aback, because she had put up so many walls between us. She told me something about there not being anything wrong with still cuddling. I pressed back against her, letting myself drown in the feeling.

How many more chances like this was I going to get?

Looks like none.

I still think that there’s a chance that this isn’t going to reach its conclusion. I still hope to avoid divorce. I understand, logically, why we are doing this. I don’t like it. It scares me, and I am questioning myself at every turn, because if I were cool, she wouldn’t be leaving me. If I were good. And that’s the looming depression over the horizon, the mind weasel nibbling away at my confidence.

She is my wife. Why doesn’t that mean something?