I thought the man who brought me flowers on our second date was genuinely interested in me. Then I discovered he’d been showing my pictures to his friends and letting them decide whether I was worth dating. His name was Brandon. We met on a dating app, and for a week, he treated me like someone he’d been searching for his entire life. He called me beautiful, asked about my childhood, and remembered that I hated driving in the rain. When I told him I’d been single for almost two years, he smiled. “Maybe you were just waiting for the right man.” I laughed, but secretly, I wanted to believe him. I’m a curvy woman, and I’d dated enough men who suddenly became embarrassed to be seen with me in public. So when Brandon suggested dinner at an upscale Italian restaurant, I was nervous. I even sent him a message before leaving home. “Just checking that you know I’m not a size six.” He called me immediately. “Why would that matter? I’m taking YOU on a date, not your dress size.” I spent an hour getting ready. When I arrived, he was standing outside with a bouquet of pink roses. He hugged me, kissed my cheek, and told me I looked stunning. Dinner was wonderful. He pulled out my chair, asked about my job, and laughed so hard at my jokes that I forgot to worry about whether other people were looking at us. At one point, he held my hand across the table. “I want to see you again,” he said. “And I’m not talking about next weekend. I mean tomorrow.” I drove home smiling like a teenager. Then, just before midnight, a notification appeared on my phone. Brandon had accidentally sent me a screenshot. It was a group chat with five of his friends. At the top was a picture of me standing beside him outside the restaurant. Underneath it, one of his friends had written: “Bro, you actually took HER out in public?” Brandon replied: “Relax. I’m trying to win the bet first.” I felt my stomach drop. Then I scrolled down. And what I saw next made me realize that the entire evening might have been a lie.

My husband told me I was too old to expect romance, so he stopped touching me for almost a year. But when I discovered what he was doing with the woman who lived across the street, I understood why he had been avoiding me. My name is Natalie, and I was thirty-eight when I realized that a marriage could make you feel lonelier than being single. My husband, Wesley, was forty-one. We had been married for nine years and had two children. In the early years, he would kiss me before leaving for work, hold my hand in public, and sometimes surprise me with flowers for no reason. Then everything changed. He stopped complimenting me. He no longer wanted us to go on dates. Whenever I tried to cuddle beside him, he would move away and say he was tired. At first, I blamed his workload. Then I started blaming myself. I bought new nightwear, changed my hairstyle, and tried to initiate intimacy. Sometimes he would tell me he had a headache. Other times, he would turn his back and fall asleep. One night, I finally asked him what was wrong. He sighed. “Natalie, we’re not teenagers anymore. Why are you always demanding romance?” I stared at him. “Wanting my husband to hold me is demanding romance?” He rolled his eyes. “You have children. You have a home. What else do you want?” I didn’t know how to explain that I wanted to feel like his wife, not just the woman who cooked his meals, washed his clothes, and raised his children. A few days later, I confided in my older cousin. She told me something that made me uncomfortable. “Be careful. Sometimes, when a man suddenly loses interest in his wife, his attention may be somewhere else.” I dismissed the idea immediately. Wesley? The man who complained whenever I spent too much money? The man who barely spoke to other women when we went out? I couldn’t imagine it. Then a new neighbour moved into the house opposite ours. Her name was Vanessa. She was thirty-two, divorced, and always friendly whenever we crossed paths. Wesley suddenly became very interested in what happened across the street. He started sitting on the balcony in the evenings. He offered to help Vanessa fix her faulty gate. He even began buying extra groceries because, according to him, she sometimes needed help carrying her shopping. I thought he was simply being a good neighbour. Until one Thursday afternoon, I returned home earlier than expected and noticed his car parked outside Vanessa’s house. That wasn’t the strangest part. His wedding ring was sitting on the dashboard. And when I walked toward her front door, I heard my husband’s voice. “Don’t worry. She suspects nothing.” My entire body went cold. Then Vanessa laughed and asked him a question I would never forget. “When are you finally going to leave her?”