"I said something similar."
Despite myself, I almost laughed.
Amy continued.
"He told me after I left, he spent years blaming me."
"Reasonable."
"Yes."
"But?"
"But his first marriage ended for almost the same reason."
I raised an eyebrow.
"He married someone else?"
"Four years after we broke up."
"And she left too?"
"After six years."
"For his family?"
"For him never setting boundaries with them."
I sat back.
"Wow."
"That's what I said."
Peter had apparently spent years in therapy after the divorce.
He told Amy he finally understood something he had refused to understand at twenty-six.
She had not ended their wedding because she was incapable of commitment.
She had ended it because she had been the only person in their relationship willing to admit the future they were building was wrong.
"He apologized to me."
Amy's voice broke slightly.
"For what?"
"For making me feel crazy."
I looked at her.
"He said his mother had been controlling. He said he had expected me to fit into his family's life without ever asking what kind of life I wanted."
Amy wiped another tear.
"He said I did the right thing."
Something inside me shifted.
"How did that make you feel?"
"Worse."
I frowned.
"Why?"
"Because I've spent thirteen years telling myself I was ashamed because everybody else blamed me."
She looked directly at me.
"But when Peter told me I wasn't wrong, I realized their judgment wasn't the reason I kept it from you anymore."
"What was?"
"Me."
She pressed one hand against her chest.
"I was still judging myself."
I said nothing.
"I had built this story in my head that what happened with Peter proved there was something unreliable about me."
"Amy."
"I know it sounds stupid."
"It doesn't."
"It does."
"No."
She looked at me.
I continued.
"You were terrified you'd become the kind of person who leaves."
"Exactly."
"And then you married me."
"Yes."
"So every bad period..."
She nodded before I finished.
"I wondered."
That hurt.
"Wondered whether you'd leave me?"
"No."
She shook her head.
"Whether I would become that person again."
"What person?"
"The woman who wakes up one morning and realizes she built the wrong life."
The words cut through me.
"Amy."
"I don't feel that way about us."
"But you were afraid you might."
"Sometimes."
"How often?"
"Not often."
"That's not comforting."
"I know."
I looked away.
There are confessions that hurt because they reveal betrayal.
Others hurt because they reveal how alone someone has been inside a shared life.
This was becoming the second kind.
"When we fought about children," Amy said quietly, "I thought about it."
I looked back.
We had spent nearly two years unsure whether to try again after the miscarriage.
I had wanted children more strongly than she did at first.
Then the miscarriage damaged both of us in different ways.
We eventually decided not to keep trying.
It had nearly broken us.
"You thought about leaving?"
"No."
She shook her head.
"I wondered whether disagreeing with you meant I was repeating the same pattern."
"What pattern?"
"Feeling trapped."
I flinched.
"I trapped you?"
"No."
"Amy."
"You didn't."
She grabbed my hand again.
"I need you to understand the difference."
I let her hold it.
"With Peter, I wasn't allowed to have uncertainty without everybody trying to solve it for me."