Arthur unfolded the letter and began reading a passage aloud. His wife had written about the fear of being honest with the person you loved most. She explained that sometimes people pretended everything was fine because they worried that admitting their unhappiness would destroy the life they had built. Yet silence could become its own kind of destruction. The letter wasn’t a magical answer to my divorce, but its message struck me deeply. I realized that I had spent so much time trying to discover what was wrong with me that I had forgotten to consider what Greg might have been struggling with himself.

Before we parted that evening, Arthur gave me a small copy of the letter. He told me to read it whenever I started blaming myself for another person’s choices. I thanked him, and for the first time since my husband left, I felt able to imagine a future that didn’t depend on receiving an explanation. Still, one question remained. Why had Greg suddenly decided to leave a marriage that appeared happy? I knew Arthur couldn’t answer that for me. But his words gave me the courage to stop treating my husband’s decision as proof that I had failed.