‘Fucking hell Beth, if you were a man telling me this you’d be a dirty cheat. Simple. You think I’m going to go easy on you because you’re a woman?’

‘No, I don’t. I don’t expect you to go easy on me at all. And so we’re clear, I am not going easy on myself either. I had sex with someone else and I know I will suffer the consequences of that. I just want you to understand that you’re also to blame. You know that’s true.’

‘You cheated on me,’ he shouts, his face getting redder. I know this hurts him; he was a good husband in many ways.

‘I did. But it’s not about sex, it’s about how you made me feel,’ I say, standing firm.

‘How I made you feel?’

‘Yes Michael. When you slowly chip away at someone they will break. I broke, and now we are broken.’

‘My mother was right, you’re a slut.’

‘A slut?’ I say, calmly.

‘Yes,’ he says.

And that is that. The moment our marriage ends. I mean, it ended a long time before this, but this is the moment I fall into it. Like leaving Michael is a warm hug, and staying with him would be like sharp fingernails scratching constantly on my soul. All the names, the digs, they just fade away. I don’t need to please my husband anymore. I don’t need to beg him to see me. I just want to enjoy being a woman.

‘Michael, I’m leaving you.’

‘Oh, you are? Actually no, I’m leaving you.’

‘No Michael, I am absolutely leaving you. I’m leaving you because you checked out of this relationship and married me with false promises. You have no right to deny me intimacy for my entire life, just because it’s not important to you. It’s important to me, and I deserve it.’

‘I’ll take Tommy,’ he says, his chest puffing up.

‘No, you won’t,’ I tell him. I haven’t felt this calm, this right in my own skin, in my own thoughts for so many years. ‘You know that isn’t best for Tommy. And you know I won’t let that happen.’

He paces more, silent now. Other than the air that he pushes through his nostrils.

‘I think you should go and stay with your mum, while we work this out. You can see Tommy anytime. I’ll never take him away from you. But this marriage is over.’

As if lightning strikes him, he falls to his knees. His head pressing into my lap.

‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me,’ he says, hurting my thighs in his hands as he squeezes them. I open his fingers with mine.