The Wives

by Tarryn Fisher

women are stuck in a cycle of insecurity perpetuated by the way men treat them, and we are constantly fighting to prove to ourselves and everyone else that we are okay.

YES

Waiting...waiting...that’s what women do. We wait for him to get home, we wait for him to pay attention to us, wait to be treated fairly—for our worth to be seen and acknowledged. Life is just a waiting game for women.

“I know I’ve failed you. I realize that I’ve put things before you. I want to make things right between us. Work on our relationship.”

People treat being sick in the body as fine, normal, empathy-worthy; they’ll bring you soup and medicine, and press the back of their hand to your forehead. But if they think you’re sick in the mind, it’s different. It’s mostly your fault—I say “mostly” because people have been told again and again that mental illness isn’t a choice—it’s chemical.

“The first year Seth and I were married, I had a miscarriage.”

“She’s had quite a few pregnancies, Thursday,” he’d said with a smile when I’d asked him if it was safe. “All of my mothers used it.”

it was Seth who caused the miscarriage.

I BELIEVED HER

We busy ourselves trying not to be lonely, trying to find purpose in careers, and lovers, and children, but at any moment, those things we work so hard to possess could be taken from us. I feel better knowing I’m not alone, that the whole world is as fragile and lonely as I am.

A woman’s greatest foe is sometimes her hope that she’s imagined it all. That she herself is crazy rather than the circumstances of her life. Funny the emotional responsibility a woman is willing to take on just to maintain an illusion.

“Yes. But you could have helped me and you chose to use me instead. You handed me the delusion.”

thissss^^^^ Regina was a bitchhhh