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She Shamed Me for Leaving My Husband

Claire Franky
4 min readMar 16, 2023

She asked me if I thought my life was over.

Photo by Rendy Novantino on Unsplash

This past weekend, I went out to a bar with my friend group. We ran into a couple of my friend’s friends with who I have attended social gatherings occasionally through the years.

It’s always a good time to make forced small talk with people you pretend to like.

One of the women we ran into was Emma. Emma is my friend’s cousin.

She’s a special type of asshole.

She married young, to someone who owns a company. They live in a large house and have two children. She wears designer clothes and shoes and suggests that everyone get cosmetic surgery, as she has.

Her favorite activity is telling each person which surgery she thinks they should have.

Maybe she’s insecure. Maybe she’s a bitch. Maybe her implants and botox will fall out.

This was the first time I had seen Emma since moving back to England and leaving my husband.

Emma sipped on her champagne.

It’s a casual bar. 90% of people are drinking beer. Calm down.

And then decided to grace me with her attention. She interrupted my conversation with one of the other pterodactyls, to ask me about my move back to England.

I explained how my daughter and I had settled in, and recited the mundane facts about jobs and houses that people use to judge you. I was mid-sentence when she raised her hand, showing me her palm.

What’s happening? Do you need the bathroom?

Emma said, “Wait a minute.”

Oh, the raised palm means stop. You gave me the hand stop signal. Am I supposed to curtsey or slap you?

She continued, “Where’s your husband?”

I dunno. Probably shitfaced in a ditch.

I told her that I had left my husband. Before I could add further information, she exclaimed, “What?! Why would you do that?”

I explained that I didn’t feel it was safe for my daughter and I to continue in the marriage.

She responded,

“So you’re just single?!”

Claire Franky
Claire Franky

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