The speech was cliché, almost painfully so. Mark stood by the door with his packed bags, looking at me with a mixture of pity and impatience.
“I need a spark, Linda,” he said, adjusting his leather jacket. “I need passion. My husband left me for a 24-year-old,” a yoga instructor named Kinsley who had never filled out a tax return in her life.
“You’ve just…” he trailed off, gesturing vaguely at my sweatpants and the stack of bills on the counter. “You’ve become ‘boring’ and ‘let yourself go.’“.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. I just looked at him, exhausted. He saw “boring.” He didn’t see the machinery required to keep his life running.
He didn’t seem to realize that I was ‘boring’ because I was managing the household, raising three kids, and managing his finances so he could be ‘exciting.’.
I was the one who made sure his credit score stayed high so he could lease that sports car. I was the one who remembered his mother’s birthday so he could look like a good son. I was the one who coordinated the three children’s chaotic schedules so he could have his “spontaneous” weekends away. I wasn’t boring; I was the Chief Operating Officer of his existence.
“Go,” I said simply. “Go be exciting.”
He left, convinced he was breaking free from a cage, not realizing he was actually jumping out of a lifeboat.
For the first month, his Instagram was full of concerts and late-night dinners with Kinsley. Then, the posts slowed down. Then, they stopped.
I, on the other hand, found that without the weight of a fourth dependent, I had time. I read books. I slept. I actually had fun.
Six months later, the doorbell rang.
It was Mark. He looked terrible. His “exciting” leather jacket was wrinkled. He looked tired, grey, and humbled.
“Linda,” he started, his voice cracking. “I made a mistake.”
I leaned against the doorframe. “How’s the exciting life?”
He looked down at his shoes. “Six months later, his apartment is a mess, his credit is ruined, and he’s begging to come back“.
It turned out that Kinsley didn’t know how to manage a budget. It turned out that “excitement” costs money, and without me moving funds and paying bills on time, the lights literally got turned off. He missed the clean laundry. He missed the stocked fridge. He missed the magic elf who fixed everything while he slept.
“I miss us,” he pleaded. “I miss our family. Kinsley… she’s just a kid. I need a partner.”
I looked at him. I saw the three children playing in the living room behind me—happy, fed, and thriving because I was competent. Then I looked at the man-child on my porch who needed a mother, not a wife.
“I can’t help you, Mark,” I said, reaching for the doorknob.
“But why?” he asked, desperate.
“I told him, ‘I’m too busy being boring to raise a fourth child.’“.
I closed the door gently but firmly. I went back inside to my quiet, organized, peaceful home, leaving him to figure out that being an adult is the most boring—and necessary—job in the world.
