Mr 30 Seconds

Once upon a younger age,

before the evidence filled the stage,

I met a man and thought, Why not?

And married him.

Excellent fucking plot.

I trusted words beneath the noise.

And every time the story bent,

somehow I became the argument.

For this man had a curious gift,

when facts appeared, the focus shifted.

Ask one question, watch him flee:

"The problem here is clearly her sanity."

A brilliant trick.

A timeless art.

Never answer the fucking part.

Then came the marriage's romantic phase

although “romantic” may be generous praise.

Because passion apparently had a timer,

and this man, ever the punctual man,

approached the marital bedroom

with an exceptionally efficient plan.

Thirty seconds.

Done.

Goodnight.

A performance so remarkably brief

it should've come with closing credits:

Directed by said man.

Produced by said man.

Runtime: 00:30.

But life moved on.

The marriage cracked.

We separated.

And surely now, one might reasonably think,

the surprises had been exhausted.

Oh, my sweet summer child.

ENTER: SYPHILIS.

Because apparently the relationship needed

a fucking post-credit scene.

A positive antibody screen appeared,

and suddenly I was sitting there

learning more about treponemal testing

than any divorced woman ever fucking asked to know.

One sexual partner.

And this man's response?

Naturally, accusations came my way.

Because nothing says

"Let's calmly establish the clinical timeline"

quite like:

“YOU CHEATED.”

Mate.

I've got pathology requesting confirmatory testing.

Then came the tracker.

A mysterious little device in the car,

questions about locations,

a trip to police,

another chapter added to the increasingly implausible autobiography titled:

Things I Cannot Believe I Have To Investigate About My Own Fucking Marriage.

But surely

SURELY

we had reached the bottom.

No.

Because one quiet day

I started downloading old bank statements.

Statement

after statement

after statement.

And there was his name.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Transfers.

Hundreds.

Thousands.

A financial breadcrumb trail through years

I'd previously understood completely differently.

And suddenly the old story

"You blew thirty grand."

started looking rather fucking interesting.

So I calculated.

And recalculated.

And stared.

And probably said

"fucken hell"

approximately seventeen thousand times.

Then I confronted this man.

Here was his moment.

His courtroom scene.

His opportunity to explain everything.

I presented what I'd found.

And this man examined the accusation carefully

and delivered his rebuttal:

“Your fucken sick in the head.”

...

Sir.

THAT IS NOT AN ACCOUNTING CATEGORY.

You cannot reconcile a bank statement

with a psychiatric insult.

And suddenly there I was

separated,

heading toward divorce,

arguing over houses and cars and cats,

talking to police about trackers,

reading pathology reports,

downloading years of statements,

and wondering how my love life

became a multidisciplinary investigation involving:

family law,

microbiology,

banking,

sexual health,

property law,

digital security,

and fucking forensics.

I didn't need a divorce lawyer.

I needed a task force.

And still, through every chapter,

the strangest theme remained:

Something happens.

I ask why.

This man explains:

You are insane.

Money?

Insane.

Questions?

Insane.

Contradictions?

Definitely insane.

Evidence?

Extremely fucking insane.

At this point, if this man's toaster catches fire,

somewhere my mental health

will be entered into evidence.

And THAT is perhaps the greatest tragedy.

Not the marriage.

Not the divorce.

Not the alleged tracker.

Not the STD investigation.

Not even discovering years later

that the financial story may have been very different

from the one I'd been told.

No.

The tragedy is that after ALL OF THIS

after surviving the arguments,

the accusations,

the police drama,

the bank statements,

the pathology results,

the disappearing money,

the relationship warfare

and the thirty-second bedroom Olympics

I can finally say:

He gave me something

that will remain with me forever.

Wisdom?

No.

Closure?

Absolutely fucking not.

CONTENT.

Enough material

for poetry until I die.

And somewhere tonight

This man is probably sitting peacefully,

completely unaware that his marriage

has become an epic literary genre.

While I sit here thinking:

"Jesus Christ. I could've just stayed unmarried."