Earning potential.

I used to tease you that the thing you found most attractive about me was my earning potential. 

It hit me this morning like a 2 x 4 to the head. 

And it made my stomach hurt all at the same time. 

Is it a coincidence that as soon as I no longer had a high-power, six-figure salary, your exit began? 

I remember sitting down with you in January 2015 and discussing the local job I was about to take. I'd be making exactly half of what I had been making. Half. We knew my check could swing the housepayment ... and essentially only that. We discussed how we'd now be dependent on YOUR earnings, for the first time ever in our marriage, to live. 

You assured me it was OK. The business was going well. You were growing. You said you just wanted me to be happy ... to have a little less stress, to explore some new options, since the past couple of years had been pretty intense. 

So I leapt. I took a job that sounded "fun," but turned out to be something I mostly hated. It made me feel small. It made me feel like a failure. 

And, we needed your income to pay for our normal lifestyle. You always seemed to have cash. 

I know now that by 2016 the business was in way more trouble than I knew. It was probably already in trouble in 2015 ... and you just didn't want to tell me. 

By 2017, the jig was up and we were sinking financially. 

That's when you left. 

Funny how you landed in a place with even greater earning potential, isn't it? 

You left me to manage the mess, scraping together the pennies and cashing in my future to keep the law at bay, while you were working part time and living quite comfortably. I was held hostage by your promises of returning home ... unable to leave the house, chained to it and sinking. Not making plans, not able to afford to go anywhere because I was paying off the credit card. Did you get a nice vacation or two in there? 

I was rationing groceries and gas, letting the house fall into disrepair because I literally couldn't afford to do anything about it, and she bought you a project house to renovate.

I'm driving a car with 108K miles on it and a failing transmission, and she's bought you a new dually. 

When the money ran out here, so did you. 

It makes me wonder if all the stuff in the middle, all the butt pinches and hand holding and belly laughs and tears and retirement planning and I love yous were real at all. Maybe they were designed to just keep the gravy train moving forward. 

Love the one you're with, or something like that. 

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