I watched other women settle into the role of wife with ease. They really threw themselves into it. They owned it. Where were the women who felt uncomfortable in that role—or, worse, failed at being a wife altogether? The women who knew it was a job they’d never really been sure they wanted in the first place, had only taken it to follow the path of life markers set up for us. Adulthood as a stream of jobs—wife, mother, lover, caretaker.

I had suspicions that it was easier not to question these roles, as they gave us something to do—some larger purpose to strive for. Most women stayed on the path whether they liked it or not. It was simply forward momentum. Or maybe this line of thinking was precisely why I was not fit to be a wife. I didn’t relish being a woman who made a winning meal or the bed just so, a woman who could juggle the inevitable tasks that weighed heavy on my side of marriage and that I was supposed to feel a sense of accomplishment from. If I left Bobby now, what was I supposed to do with my time, my life?

A man I’d met once but did not sleep with told me we are all masochists and sadists wandering around looking for our opposite. He said, “What are you, then, a masochist or a sadist?”

I had to think about it. I had, in previous relationships, tried on the role of sadist, but had not found any joy in men who played the masochist. The excitement about the power flip faded into disgust quickly.

I looked at this man and admitted I was a masochist. When I said it, I knew that he was my opposite, a sadist. I wanted him to try out the role on me, but he wouldn’t, couldn’t. He had already found a masochist who suited him.

But I asked him what role he played anyway, because I wanted to hear him say it.

“I’m a sadist,” he told me. “You just need to find a sadist of your own.”

As if it was that easy.

I was a masochist who lined up other masochists, both parties doomed from the start. Bobby and I, unaware of each other’s roles, were two masochists fighting for a kind of dominance neither of us knew how to own. And as I looked around our apartment, I thought about how my default role had become sadist toward the end of our marriage—the person who performed the action that caused the most pain to the entire organism. I had turned to cruelty in hopes that Bobby would leave me, but he hung on.

“I hope you know I don’t need you,” I’d say from time to time, even though it felt like a lie more often than not.

“What if I need you?” he’d respond.