My Wife Left When I Lost My Job, Saying She’d Married a Provider, Not a Problem – Three Days Later, She-Demanded, ‘How Long Were You Planning to Keep This from Me?’

I looked at the photograph on my desk.

Marissa and me at the coast five years earlier.

Her hair blowing across her face.

Me laughing.

We had savings.

Six months of expenses, maybe more if we cut back.

My severance package was decent.

My résumé was strong.

Three competitors had already contacted me before I left the parking lot.

I was scared.

But I was not panicking.

I kept thinking:

Marissa will be worried.

Then we will make a plan.

That was what married people did.

At least, that was what I believed.

I stopped on the way home and bought dinner from the little Mediterranean place she loved.

I even bought the stupid pistachio cake she always claimed she didn’t like before eating half of mine.

I walked into our house at 6:12.

Marissa was at the dining table with her tablet.

“You’re early.”

“Yeah.”

She looked at the takeout bag.