My 67-Year-Old Friend Gets Divorced

It’s hard to discover that 42 years of marriage were a complete illusion

There was a strange quietness in the room when I entered my parents’ house that Sunday afternoon. The heavy silence, interrupted only by contained sobs, contrasted with the usual lively conversation atmosphere I typically found.

Sitting on the sofa, with red eyes and trembling hands, was my father’s longtime friend and inseparable fishing companion. Next to him, a small dark wooden chest rested like a bomb about to explode.

“Forty-two years,” he said in a choked voice, raising his eyes to greet me when I entered. “Forty-two years living a lie.” My parents, seated across from him, motioned for me to join them.

This gentleman had always been that man with an easy smile, who spoke of his wife with a special sparkle in his eyes. That afternoon, however, that man had disappeared, replaced by a broken version, devastated by a discovery that had destroyed the foundations of his existence.

With hesitant fingers, he opened the chest and showed us its contents — dozens of yellowed letters, some recent, all written in the same delicate handwriting that he had immediately recognized. “I found them in the attic, when I was looking for my old fishing rods,” he explained, his voice low and distant.

“Letters from my wife to another man. Letters that began before our marriage and continued until… until two weeks ago.”