But genuine moments didn’t excuse deliberate betrayal, either.

“You don’t need to solve the whole marriage into one sentence,” she said.

That helped more than I expected.

I could accept that I had loved someone who had also hurt me profoundly.

I could stop interrogating every happy memory as though it were evidence against my judgment.

I retained separate counsel to finalize the remaining legal and financial issues of our marriage.

The work was unromantic: disclosures, valuations, signatures, deadlines.