The Shallows
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Read between September 6 - September 14, 2023
2%
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The fact is, even after ten years, I don’t know my husband. But do we ever really know anyone?
2%
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My neighbour is dead, I’m complicit, and I don’t know where my husband is taking us.
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Anyone who calls their husband lovely is lying. You have to watch out for the ‘nevers’ and the ‘always’ people spill from their mouths. They’re wanting to prove something to you, to themselves.
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But just like any perfect person who you admire from afar, you can’t invite them into your own house, otherwise they’ll notice the imperfections and the fragilities of your own life.
4%
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‘Just my lovely husband,’ she says. And in that, I hear the lie.
6%
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I want to know her faults, her issues, her insecurities. Something about knowing hers makes my own seem less frightening.
7%
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Not all marriages stem from love or wanting to be with one another. Ours was practically arranged and simply needed to happen.
7%
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I needed him to create my children and once they arrived, I wouldn’t need him any longer. I was lucky. Because my husband didn’t need me either. He wanted the look of perfection, the look of happiness, the wife to boast about, the
9%
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The minder coughs into his fist and Ariella rapidly blinks. Is this a signal? A cue? He coughs and she stops talking?
12%
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People only see success by who they know and associate with. Where they work and live.
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What car they drive. They never see the woman crying in the shower, the drinking to get drunk, the bingeing after starving, the relentless running to burn off the pent-up anger.
17%
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Trust is the treasure breeding safety, communication, intimacy, friendship. Lose the trust, and the partner strays. That’s what happened with us. I strayed.
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I’m five months pregnant and it’s Jack’s.
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Jack is a silent business partner in Charles’ security firm.
24%
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Why do you marry a man, ignoring all the signals? They were there and they were obvious, yet the prior, failing long-term relationship and the looming inner-baby-timer ticking had me rushing, had me rushing into marriage with him.
45%
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her forcefully, sticking his tongue deep into her mouth. And I can’t move. I’m frozen watching as Tracy first struggles and then reciprocates, kissing him back. And I’m beside them, witnessing it unfold like I’m viewing a porno and I shouldn’t be. And all I can think about
53%
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And this is what I believe most mothers pride themselves on. Our children are connected to us with an invisible umbilical cord that never severs, no matter how far away they are. It’s an energy that’s felt. A quiet knowing.
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I had it all. I hated it all. And now look.
78%
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Blame is easy. Ownership of emotions is something
78%
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else altogether. That comes later, when you realise blaming does nothing to move you on in life. It keeps you stunted in that childlike body, afraid to step up and grow up. I see it all the time. I see it in me.