Cruel thin lines

Chapter 3

I’m a photographer and I love my job. I met Fabrice in a photo shoot, he is a Lighting Technician and although I was reluctant to get involved with someone, I admired his work a lot and that seduced me.

So much that I accepted his invitation to a wine tasting. We talked a lot; we had so much in common! But is that a guarantee that a marriage will be happy and will last? No, there must be more than just coincidences, perhaps none at all, or perhaps a few. The truth is that there are never guarantees.

Today we are here, tomorrow we don’t know, that’s why we simply have to experience it.

Fabrice is a temperamental man, one of those obsessively controlling people. Today I can say that he was a pathological manipulator, he was one of those who made you believe that you were in control, in short, after four years of dating, the inevitable happened. My parents had come to visit me and, in combination with them, they organized a dinner where he proposed to me.

I should have said no, but, wow, I was twenty-seven and Fabrice had been my only boyfriend, my only and first man.

I said yes.

I can’t say that our marriage was bad, but it was very structured and I felt suffocated. Everything had to be perfect, everything in the right place, but I was totally imperfect!

I was chaos.

I was adapting to that compulsion of order, but I never felt comfortable, I never felt adequate.

I am clumsy, forgetful and untidy by nature, and that, made Fabrice mad. During our marriage we argued more about where to squeeze the toothpaste or which side to put the toilet paper rolls on, than about really important things. Well, at least important to me.

On the other hand, there were topics that were directly off-limits; I didn’t mind not talking about politics or his immaculate and perfect family, but when the subject of “children” was put on the list of “off-limits”, I felt a little more out of place.

I love children and why not say it? Children love me. I’m like a magnet and I love it. My maternal instinct is intact, I always wanted to be a mother and, with Fabrice, that didn’t seem possible.