My Wife Said Her Ex Was Just a Friend, So I Asked for a Divorce—and Then She Backed Out

The day I was discharged after surgery, my wife said she’d come pick me up. But by the time I got home after changing buses one after another outside the hospital, I still hadn’t seen a trace of her. I opened the messaging app and found the Instagram post she had put up an hour earlier. A photo of a thumb wrapped tightly in bandages, tied off with a pretty bow. Caption: Someone actually said my bandaging looked ugly. So mad. I called her, but all I heard was her ex’s faintly mocking voice. “Mia, is your husband checking up on you again?” Whenever I needed my wife, he either had some scrape or injury that needed caring for, or he was lonely and depressed and needed someone to keep him company. And every time, my wife chose him without hesitation. As if I were the outsider. I collapsed weakly onto the sofa, replaying everything that had happened over the years, and then I steeled myself and contacted a lawyer. I was tired. I wanted a divorce. ... The lawyer sent me a draft divorce agreement on my phone. I got up and walked to the table, and the empty house felt even colder. Dozens of pages of text looked like they were mocking my three years, like it had all been a joke. Suddenly, my wife started a video call with me. “Sorry, babe,” Mia said on the screen, dressed up delicately and beautifully, wearing a fitted spaghetti-strap mini dress, her expression cool. “Something came up all of a sudden, so I can’t pick you up from the hospital. Are you home yet?” Her tone was as normal as ever, as if the person who had just complained about me on the phone to her ex wasn’t her. I said, “Mm,” and then I didn’t know what else to say. I’d heard the same excuses too many times. I was already numb. Mia noticed my silence and explained, “Ryan hurt his finger while renovating today. I was worried, so I...” “So you abandoned your husband of three years on the operating table and ran off to worry about some outsider!” I snapped coldly at Mia. There was a clear pause on the other end of the video call. When Mia recovered, her voice rose. “Don’t say that! Ryan isn’t some outsider. He’s my friend! Besides, didn’t your surgery go fine?” “Ethan, can you stop making a scene?” I suddenly felt like laughing when I heard that. A friend. More important than her husband. “Who exactly is making a scene? A friend? Huh. A friend you drink boba with and eat from the same bowl with? A friend who can call you out in the middle of the night and get you to leave? A friend you go running to when he’s drunk? Mia, I’m not an idiot!” “Ryan gets a little hurt and you worry yourself sick. I was vomiting my guts out in the hospital from a stomach bleed, and you didn’t even ask!” “It’s always like this, Mia. What am I to you, really?” I shot up in anger, and the movement tugged at my wound so badly it made me dizzy. I had to brace myself against the sofa just to keep from passing out. My lips had gone so pale they were frightening. But Mia on the other end didn’t notice at all. Her voice turned sharp, impatient. “I told you, we’re just friends.” “If you want to think that, there’s nothing I can do.” My fury all seemed to smash softly into a wall of cotton. “I’m not coming home tonight.” Mia gave me that as a perfunctory notice. She was holding up a mirror while fixing her makeup, and the phone screen shook, catching a flash of a man wearing only a bath towel. I couldn’t help clenching my fists and said sarcastically, “Spending the night with your good friend? Sharing a bed?” “What are you even saying? Do you have to make us sound so dirty? Ethan, if your mind is filthy, then everything you see is filthy!” She was clearly panicking, her hands freezing mid-makeup as she kept yelling at me. I sneered. “Is that so? Then you two really do have the purest exes relationship!” Ryan suddenly pushed into the video call, his upper body pressed tightly against Mia’s. “Bro, don’t be mad. It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t accidentally hit my finger, Mia wouldn’t have worried so much and come find me. You two wouldn’t be fighting either.” “But I don’t really have any other friends, besides Mia... Mia’s a really great girl. Every time something happens to me, she comes to help me...” When he said that, his eyes were looking at me provocatively, like he was showing off something. “Heh.” I let out a cold laugh. “Yeah, after being broken up this long, you still only know how to ask your married ex-girlfriend for help when something happens. Wow.” Mia’s expression changed at once. She reached out and pulled him behind her. “Ethan, you’re not allowed to yell at him!” As she shifted, I could see more clearly what Mia was wearing underneath. It was obviously lingerie. And her thigh had already been pressed right up against Ryan’s. He was still rubbing against her. It was so intimate it made me sick. The woman I had loved for seven years suddenly felt completely unfamiliar. From a first crush in our youth to the wounds all over me after marriage. I had walked this road in too much pain. I had risked everything just to get one result. In the end, I got nothing. “If you have nothing else, I’m hanging up.” Mia’s voice turned a little breathy. She hurriedly finished speaking to me and lifted her hand to hang up. I cut her off. “Mia, do you even deserve the dad who died for you?” Back then, Mia and Ryan had been wildly in love, all sweetness and passion. But in the end, Ryan had only gone after Mia’s family money. He took away most of the Mia family’s money, the company’s cash flow broke, and Mia’s father went gray overnight. They had no choice but to keep selling off property to patch the holes, and her father had to bow and scrape while borrowing money and begging favors from former business partners. There was even a company boss in his forties or fifties who had taken a liking to Mia, and her father had forcefully blocked him. Mia’s father worked himself nonstop day and night and eventually died from a sudden illness. Mia hated Ryan to the bone. “Do you still remember how I gave up everything to come here with you?” I was the one who stayed with Mia through that darkest time, little by little, helping her get through it. She drank herself senseless all night, and I brought her out, cared for her carefully, and encouraged her to pull herself together. I gave up the promising future and further-study opportunities back home... and followed Mia without hesitation to her hometown, two thousand miles away. I worked four jobs a day. I stayed by her side, fighting day and night, and helped rescue her company. Four years later, we got married, and Mia smiled and said the luckiest thing in her life was meeting me. Her company kept getting bigger. Then, out of nowhere, Ryan showed up again.At first, Mia had sworn up and down that she was only going back to get revenge on Ryan. But as her returns home became fewer and fewer, and she came back later and later, I started to sense something was wrong. Then one day, a text about a hotel room came to my phone. I called Mia. No answer. So I kept calling. When I finally got through, I heard soft, coquettish breathing. Mia hurriedly explained that she was out getting a foot massage, then immediately hung up. Afraid I might hear even one more second. We were all adults. Of course I knew what they were doing. But I still deceived myself and thought that was Mia’s way of getting revenge on Ryan. All I needed was to wait. I believed Mia. I loved her. I understood her. What I waited for was the growing distance between husband and wife. It was the constant fights between us. It was her saying that back then, Ryan had been forced into it too, that he hadn’t meant to run off with the money. He had depression. And the phrase that came up more and more often: we’re just friends. ... Mia on the other end was clearly at a loss. I gave my final ultimatum: “Mia, if you don’t come home tonight, then don’t ever come back!” Then I hung up. I printed the divorce agreement on the home printer and scrolled through the few photos I had with Mia in my phone album. Actually, she loved taking photos. Back when she was with Ryan, she couldn’t wait to post pictures of the two of them on her feed every day. She just didn’t want to take pictures with me. It was already 4:30 in the morning, and I still hadn’t seen Mia come back. My stomach churned, and the unbearable pain forced me to rest. When I woke up after dawn, Mia still wasn’t in the house. Just as I was hesitating over whether to call her, the door opened. Mia came in smiling, carrying a big bag of groceries. “Ethan, I bought lamb to help you recover.” She rarely cooked at home, and the few times she did were only when I was really angry, and she reluctantly made a few dishes to coax me. Even though I knew every apology Mia made was just lip service, I still chose to forgive her. I thought that one day, she would come back. But this time, I was suddenly tired. I tiredly took the groceries from her hands, forced down the discomfort in my stomach, and smiled weakly. “Mia, did you forget? I’m allergic to lamb.” There were so many other vegetables at the market, and yet she had chosen the lamb I was allergic to! What reason did I have to believe she had really realized her mistake? “Really?” Mia gave me an awkward smile. “Aren’t you just not feeling well? You have so many dietary restrictions, this can’t have, that can’t have. I just forgot for a moment...” “We’ve been married three years. I went into the hospital once because lamb made me have trouble breathing, and once I was covered in a rash and had to rest for three days. Don’t you remember any of that?” Mia shot me an impatient look. “I have so many things to remember. How am I supposed to keep track of all that? Ethan, do you really have to nitpick over something this small?” I didn’t want to keep arguing over something so pointless. So I stayed silent. My eyes fell on the other bag in Mia’s hand. It was also filled with groceries, a huge variety of them. She had packed it full as if worried he wouldn’t have enough to eat. But what Mia said sent me plummeting into an ice cave, my body starting to shake. Her eyes curved as she smiled. “Ryan’s coming over in a bit. I was afraid he might not be used to the food here, so I thought I’d make him something myself.” “He can’t eat a lot of things, and he likes spicy food. He doesn’t like it when there’s too much ginger and garlic...” As she talked about it, Mia seemed to open a floodgate and had a lot more to say. Every word was a knife, stabbing hard into my chest. I couldn’t help yelling, “Enough! Is he your husband or am I your husband?” “Bro, how can you yell at Mia like that?” Suddenly, a tall figure stormed into the kitchen and shoved me hard toward the island. It was Ryan. I clutched my waist where I had hit it, pain flickering there, and a wave of dizziness washed over me. “This is our home. What does it mean for you to call him over like this, Mia!” Hearing my accusing tone, Mia got angry too. “I told you, we’re friends. What’s wrong with inviting a friend over? Besides, Ryan came here this time to apologize to you. Why are you being so aggressive?” “Yeah, bro,” Ryan stepped closer and patted my shoulder. “It’s all because of me that you and Mia keep fighting.” “If I weren’t all alone in this city, unfamiliar with everything, with barely any friends...” As Ryan spoke, he lowered his head sadly. Then I heard him continue: “I should just leave here. It’s my fault for disturbing your lives. Mia is such a good person. She shouldn’t have to...” He hadn’t finished when Mia wrapped her arms around him. Right in front of me, she gently patted his back. Mia shot me a glare. “It’s not your fault, Ryan.” “It’s some people who are too petty. They’re worried about everything all day and checking up on people eight hundred times!” Ryan shot me a smug look out of the corner of his eye. He took Mia’s hand. “Mia, I think bro is just worried about you too... Concern makes people lose their heads.” I stepped back, using my right hand to brace myself against the island. I forced myself not to show my weakness. The taste of blood, rusty and metallic, rose in my throat. I looked at the two of them clinging together and closed my eyes. “Mia, let’s get divorced.” “I’ve already printed the divorce agreement and put it on the table. Sign it later.” Hearing that, Mia looked up at me in disbelief. “Divorce? Ethan, are you crazy?” “All because of this little thing, you want a divorce from me?” Mia asked several questions in a row, and I met her gaze with complete certainty and nodded. “Yes. Divorce.” “Do it for you two.” I turned and walked out of the kitchen, never looking back at that pair of scumbags. Behind me came Mia’s furious voice: “I told you, Ryan and I are just friends. What are you talking about!” “Divorce? Ethan, you’ll regret this!” Seeing that I didn’t react, Mia got even angrier. She chased after me and pointed at my nose, cursing, “I’ve had enough of you! Don’t you have any friends of your own?” “I told you, Ryan and I have nothing going on. You’re just jealous because he’s doing well! He has depression and no friends, and he has no one to rely on here, so I’m just looking after him. Why are you so petty?”