The resignation letter was the hardest thing I ever wrote. It wasn’t just a job; it was my identity. I had spent twenty years climbing the corporate ladder, breaking glass ceilings, and earning the title on the heavy oak door: CEO.
But Mark was drowning. Or so he said.
“I can’t breathe in the city anymore,” he had pleaded one night, clutching his chest. “The noise, the pressure… it’s killing me. He told me he needed to move to a small town for his mental health.“.
He painted a picture of pastoral peace. He talked about growing our own vegetables, waking up to silence, and finding ourselves in the soil. I loved him. I wanted him to be well. So, I made the ultimate trade.
I quit my CEO job to support him.
We sold the penthouse. We moved three hours away from the nearest Starbucks. We bought a farm.
The first month was idyllic. I learned to feed livestock while wearing Hunter boots. Mark bought a tractor. We breathed fresh air.
But by month three, the novelty wore off. Farming is hard, dirty, relentless work. It doesn’t care if you’re tired. It doesn’t care about “mental health days.” The animals need to eat. The fences need fixing.
I threw myself into the labor, treating the farm like a company that needed a turnaround strategy. Mark, however, started spending a lot of time on the porch, staring at his phone, scrolling through photos of our old life.
Then came the six-month mark. I came in from the coop, covered in mud and straw, holding a basket of eggs. Mark was sitting at the kitchen table, looking sheepish.
“I think I made a mistake,” he said.
“About the tractor?” I asked.
“About the farm,” he sighed. “Six months later, he admitted he was bored and missed the city.“.
He missed the takeout. He missed the gallery openings. He missed the energy. He realized that the quiet he begged for was actually just silence, and he didn’t like what he heard when the noise stopped.
He moved back.
He packed his bags and rented a sleek apartment downtown, returning to the very environment he claimed was killing him.
I stood on the porch and watched him leave. I couldn’t go with him. My position at the firm was filled. My reputation as the woman who “dropped out” was sealed.
I was left with chickens, a mortgage, and a career I couldn’t get back.
I looked at the fields that demanded my labor and the bank statements that demanded my savings. I realized with a burning fury that my sacrifice had been for nothing. I had incinerated my hard-earned success not for a necessity, but for a whim.
He destroyed my life to test drive a fantasy. He treated my career and our stability like a pair of shoes he could try on and return if they pinched, leaving me barefoot in the mud to pay the bill.
