Cody McFadyen - Abandoned

We always made up, made love, and learned from our fights. It was something we’d actually do—sit down and talk once we were calm and try to understand the other person’s viewpoint. We’d admit where we were wrong and the other was right, and then we’d come up with a compromise.

Neither of us had an awesome job, but we were making enough money between us to buy a house. It was a lucky purchase too. It’s worth more now than what we paid, in spite of the market. We set up that house together. We were frugal, and that was part of the fun of it. We went to secondhand stores and garage sales, buying bookshelves that didn’t match the coffee table that we’d bought somewhere else. We had three or four different kinds of silverware, none of them a full set. Sometimes we’d make a weekend of it. We’d pack a picnic lunch and a thermos of coffee and we’d spend two days driving through the San Fernando Valley searching for treasures in other people’s castoffs. We’d find a park when we were hungry and spread a blanket and just … stop. Look. Take in the sun and the sky and the grass. Sometimes we’d talk about the future, about the kids we wanted to have. We agreed that a son and two daughters would be ideal, but a son was on the agenda, period, and then on other days we’d talk about grandchildren, or whether we’d get a Lab or a collie, and all of our other zillion plans. It took us some time, but we built the inside of that house together. We made it a home. It wasn’t the prettiest, and nothing matched, but it was ours.

It was an adventure. I felt good. I felt like I’d found my place in this life. I was set.

One day, without warning, everything changed.

I came home and she said we needed to talk. She was so calm, so reasonable, I remember that clearly. Not a sign of grief. She talked to me like an adult would talk to a difficult child, and she proceeded to destroy my life in what was almost a monotone. She’d fallen out of love with me, she said. It wasn’t my fault, she said. It was a gradual thing, but she was sure of it now, she said. She wanted a divorce. She wanted the house. She also said—and this is the worst of all of it—that she’d gotten pregnant a few months back but got an abortion. Because she knew then, already, that she was going to want to get divorced, and she didn’t think it was a “good idea” to have a baby if we were no longer going to be together. She said all of these things, one after the other, cool as a cucumber, just stating the facts with no embroidery. It was as if she was reading from a list that she needed to get through.

I should have said something then. Something smart, or cutting, or deep. But I couldn’t talk. It’s not that I couldn’t think of anything to say—I couldn’t speak. The pathways from my brain to my vocal cords had shorted out.

Looking at her, I felt like I was staring at a monster. Which was part of the problem. Because she couldn’t be a monster. This was the woman I loved, the one who’d told me, in the middle of a sunrise, that we were going to make it. This was the woman I’d built a home with. I had trusted her absolutely, with every single tiny part of me. And now here she was, sitting across from me, calm, collected, almost mechanically cold, telling me it was over.

When I did manage to finally engage my mouth, I didn’t say anything worthwhile. It was pathetic. I cringe when I think about it now. The whining, desperate sound of my own voice. I asked her if there was someone else, and she assured me that there wasn’t. I asked her why, what I had done, and I remember what she said, because I could really tell that it was true. As much of a stranger as she’d just become, as hard as she’d blindsided me, I still knew her enough to know that she believed what she was saying.

“I woke up one day and what I felt for you had gone flat. I waited for that to change.” She shrugged. “It didn’t. I realized it never would. I can’t live the rest of my life feeling that way, and you shouldn’t either.”

I begged her on my knees to go for marriage counseling. She refused. Nothing I said or did could get through to her. She was closed off to me. I guess that’s the final point of all this, why it hurts so much for all of us. When a woman gives herself to us completely, when she lets us inside, it brings us to life like nothing else. When that’s taken away, we’re somehow lonelier than we were before we met her.

I came to this site because, quite frankly, I’m a mess. I have trouble sleeping. I go through times when I miss her and times when I wish she was dead. I’ve had feelings of rage that frighten me. Mostly, I’m just in pain. Right, wrong, indifferent, I’m just in pain. I’m not ready to call her a bitch, not yet. But I’m getting there.

That’s it. Sorry to ramble, but I feel safe here, and I needed to say it all.

I finish reading and sit back in my chair. “Wow,” I say. “I’m impressed. That’s going to make an impact.”

“We spent a lot of time crafting it,” Leo says. “It’s a little long, but we wanted something that would resonate with the men on this site and that would be sure to get a lot of attention. It’s already generating discussion.”

“Where?”

“There’s a place below each story where members can post their comments. Reload the page and you’ll see the ones that have already been posted.”

I refresh the post, and I see four. The top one begins:

Great first story. Honest sharing. You really spoke to me with that one, buddy. Really and truly. I loved my wife too, before she kicked me in the balls. It’s always easier getting hurt by a stranger. Just hang in there. It will get better, I promise.

Then:

Don’t let anyone make you use the word bitch until you’re ready, brother. This is about you, not other people. You work through it the way that’s best for you, period.

Next:

Good first post. Strong stuff.

And finally:

You won’t say it, so I’ll say it for you, brother. She’s a bitch. A fucking cunt. I’m sorry if that offends you. That’s not my intent. But I’m more sorry that you went through that. People say that men have commitment problems, like it’s a male-only condition. Bullshit. Women are just as wired to be twisted as we are. It’s not a “man condition.” It’s a human condition. A man who did to a woman what your wife did to you would be called a bastard, or a motherfucker. So I’ll say it again: She’s a bitch. A cold, fucking cunt.

“I think we left our mark,” Alan observes.

“Good job. Now what?”

“Chat room?” Leo asks.

“Go ahead,” Alan replies.

I switch views now, watching in real time as Leo clicks on and logs in to the Brother Chat room.

“We’ll lurk for a bit,” Leo says.

“Lurk?” I ask.

“Just like it sounds. We watch but don’t take part. It’s pretty common for newbies. Good manners, even. You sit back and observe and try to learn the rules. Every group has its standards by which you’re judged and its own rules of etiquette. Violate the first one, and nobody will take you seriously. Violate the other, and no one is going to talk to you. I already see a rule for this chat room that’s unusual for chats in general.”

“Which is?”

“Most chat rooms are quick back and forths. Just like real conversations. This chat room has a lot of soapboxing. That’s strange enough in and of itself, but the real shocker is that the others in the chat room actually shut up while that’s going on. There’s no heckling, no stepping on each other’s conversations.”

I watch the screen. It takes me a moment, but I see what he’s talking about. Right now a member who calls himself KingEnergy12 is preaching.

Misandry is not just being legitimized psychologically. It’s being made law. The original intent of laws to protect women, as stated, was simply to raise the rights of women, not to lower the rights of men. But in practice, that’s exactly what’s occurred. We have created a society where a belief system about men has been inculcated as a collection of false facts. You see examples of it in every walk of life. Take a look at television sometimes. What kind of man do you see portrayed there? Let’s see. You have the silly daddy, a kindly fumbler with the best of intentions but a few brain cells missing. He’s guided through his own stupidity by his wiser wife, who is endlessly patient with his genetically programmed inabilities. You have the man’s man. He watches sports, farts and laughs about it, and lives to hog the remote and slam back those brewskies, baby! He’s trained young in all the ways to get the stripper glitter off his clothes, and he lives by the rules of look but don’t touch , or touch via lap dance but don’t fuck. His (again) wiser wife puts up with her Neanderthal because she knew what she was getting into when they got married, and, besides, he comes through in the clutch. Other luminaries include the wife-beater (Lifetime channel, anyone?) and the pedophile.