I never imagined that the end of my marriage would arrive over a roast chicken and a bottle of red wine. For most of my adult life, I believed in the quiet strength of loyalty, in the kind of bond that could withstand storms if both people held on tightly enough. I was wrong.

My name is Isabel, and I was married to Marcus for almost nineteen years. We had built what I thought was a solid life together: a charming brick house in a quiet neighborhood, two children—our teenage son Lucas and our younger daughter Sophie—and a sense of routine that felt comforting rather than stale. We weren’t flashy people. Our vacations were simple road trips, our holidays were about family, and our dinners often ended with Marcus making some dry joke that made the kids roll their eyes.

For years, I thought we were happy. At least, I was.