Violeta Noir

Your husband told me he didn't want to be needed.

I remember that because I thought it was one of the more honest things he ever said.

He didn't want another person depending on him for their happiness.

He didn't want to feel responsible for holding someone else's life together.

He wanted to be wanted.

Not needed.

I understood that.

Actually,

I liked it.

I didn't want to need him either.

Need creates architecture.

It makes people load-bearing.

Your husband was never load-bearing in my life.

I wanted him.

There is a difference.

I wanted his company.

His mind.

His laugh.

His hands.

His mouth.

I wanted entire afternoons to disappear beside him.

I wanted him in my bed.

I wanted his attention.

Sometimes,

I wanted his devotion.

But I did not need him to hold my life together.

That position was never his.

He had a wife.

I had a husband.

I had children.

A home.

Work.

School.

Friends.

An entire life that existed before he arrived and continued whenever he left.

I could love him inside that life without making him responsible for it.

So when he asked not to be needed,

I listened.

I gave him exactly what he asked for.

Then something strange happened.

Eventually,

he didn't seem to like it.

You don't need me.

He would say it like an accusation.

I would laugh.

That's true.

You're happy without me.

Also true.

I never understood why I was supposed to deny it.

You're not the source of my happiness.

I am.

I told him I would dance with or without him.

I meant it.

If he wanted to dance,

beautiful.

Come here.

If he didn't,

the music did not stop.

That seemed to hurt him.

I understood why.

Being wanted can feel intoxicating.

Being needed can feel important.

Being loved by someone who will continue dancing without you requires accepting something less flattering.

You are not the source.

You are participating in something that existed before you arrived.

He had asked for exactly that.

Then he seemed to want something else.

He wanted me to be his wife.

He told me so.

He imagined a family with me.

He imagined children with me.

He mourned versions of our life together that had never existed.

And somehow,

while remaining married,

he also seemed to expect me to remain available.

Single.

Waiting.

His.

I laughed at that too.

No.

If he could have a wife,

he could be my side piece.

Fair seemed fair.

I told him.

That's cool.

You can be my side piece too.

He did not seem to appreciate the symmetry.

I did.

Because I had never agreed that his marriage entitled him to options while his feelings for me entitled him to exclusivity.

He was married.

I became single.

Those were very different conditions.

Once my marriage ended,

I dated.

Of course I dated.

There were other men.

Some lasted a night.

Some lasted longer.

Some lasted months.

Your husband continued coming by.

Sometimes he knew about the others.

Sometimes he didn't.

But he knew there would be others.

I had told him.

I simply did not believe that telling him I would date obligated me to provide an itinerary afterward.

He was my lover.

Not my parole officer.

And certainly not my husband.

Sometimes he would become insecure about the men around me.

I understood that too.

My world was getting larger.

I met interesting men.

Educated men.

Professionals.

Men with extraordinary lives of their own.

I dated a rocket scientist.

I went flying.

I went on yachts.

I rode in helicopters.

I had dinners.

Dates.

Experiences.

Stories.

I was living.

And your husband knew it.

Sometimes,

I think what bothered him wasn't simply that other men wanted me.

It was that my life provided visible evidence of something I had been telling him all along.

I wasn't waiting.

He could leave my house and my world would continue moving before the door had finished closing behind him.

That didn't mean I didn't love him.

It didn't mean I wouldn't miss him.

Sometimes I missed him terribly.

Sometimes I cried.

Sometimes I genuinely hurt.

But pain and collapse are not the same thing.

He could hurt me without destroying me.

He could leave without taking my happiness with him.

He could disappoint me without changing the architecture of my life.

And because I knew that,

I could be unusually honest with him.

Blunt.

Cutting sometimes.

I could look directly at something he said and tell him it was bullshit.

I could point at a contradiction without worrying that the argument might cost me the roof over my head.

If he became angry and left,

my life remained standing.

I might cry.

I might miss him.

I might curse him.

I might want him back in my bed before the argument was even finished.

But my life remained standing.

There was freedom in that.

Maybe too much.

Because eventually,

I realized I could play with the relationship in ways I never could have played with something holding up my actual life.

But that came later.

For now,

the rule was simple.

He had asked not to be needed.

I didn't need him.

He wanted to be wanted.

I wanted him.

Very much.

Then he began wanting something larger.

To matter differently.

To be necessary.

To occupy positions he had never been available to fill.

But by then,

I liked where we lived.

Lover.

Not husband.

Not foundation.

Not future I needed to secure.

Lover.

He had asked for freedom from necessity.

I had given it to him.

What neither of us seemed to understand at first was what lived inside that freedom.

I could leave.

So could he.

And the music would keep playing.

He wanted to change the rules.

I didn't.

No take backsies.