I say this not to be cruel about Liam but because it was the exact hinge on which my last hope turned.

All through that night and the day after, I had held, without quite admitting it, one final theory that would have let me stay: that this was a catastrophic lapse, a moment of weakness in a fundamentally decent man, the kind of failure a marriage can survive if it is followed by genuine, horrified repentance.

People break under pressure.

I could have forgiven a man who broke and then, seeing clearly what he had done, came apart with remorse and begged to make it right.

That man I could have worked with.