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My Marriage Was Just Fine, so We Broke Up

Nothing was wrong, but it wasn’t worth saving, either

sarah.e.conklin

Published in

Human Parts

10 min readNov 1, 2019

Ironically, my future husband and I officially became official before a trip to the hospital, thanks to a frat house party two towns away, that at least no one went to jail for, as far as I know. I was scheduled to have knee surgery the following morning, and when my roommates stumbled out the door in too-high heels and too-short skirts for a “little get together,” swearing up and down they’d be home in the morning to take me to surgery, I knew I needed a backup plan.

The cute baseball player from across the street and I had been hanging out for a few months by then, and when he offered to take me I knew he wasn’t just a good option — always reliable and responsible — but he was probably the only person on campus on a Friday night still sober enough to be trusted to make the early morning call time. We then agreed that people you were “just hanging out with” didn’t escort each other to surgeries, and that we should probably embrace some new titles.

Apparently it was a bit of a shock when the nurse came into the waiting room asking for “Sarah’s neighbor” to let him know I was awake, but who can blame me for not wanting to use the term for the first time on a hospital intake form?

Well written, and if I may, I’d like to add that this is a prime example of what happens when couples don’t abide by the following two rules:

1 — the man must *never* stop courting the woman, even when they are already old, and

2 — the woman must…

Thank you for sharing this beautifully written piece. My husband started the talk about the end of our marriage back in February but our marriage had been over for years. It was just so much easier to keep doing what we were doing except we weren’t really living — just checking off the boxes like you said.

Marriage is like a plant, you must water it and give it sunlight for it to grow. It must be nurtured too. But if a plant is dead, no amount of water, sunlight or nurturing will bring it back to life. Plus a smart person knows when to quit. I…

Human Parts

My Marriage Was Just Fine, so We Broke Up

Nothing was wrong, but it wasn’t worth saving, either

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Published in Human Parts

Written by sarah.e.conklin

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