October, The Odd Ones

We sat on opposite ends of the couch. The couples therapist, Dr. Mireille, sat across from us, legs crossed, notepad resting on her knee. She'd spent the first half-hour just listening. No interruptions. Just nods, the occasional jot of her pen, a few well-placed "Go on"s when things got tense.

Finally, she set the notebook down.

"There are two separate issues here," she said gently, her voice steady, almost soothing. "But one feeds the other. There's the affair. And there's the miscommunication that came long before it."

October shifted slightly beside me, her legs crossed tight, her arms folded like a shield. I didn't move. I couldn't. The words were landing too close to home.

"We'll address both," Dr. Mireille continued. "But we need to start at the foundation. The affair is the fire, yes but miscommunication? That's the gas line running underneath. It's what made everything flammable to begin with. A leak you never noticed. A pressure build-up left untended. It was always there, hissing in the background, long before the first spark."

I nodded slowly. Couldn't disagree. I didn't even try to.

She let a beat of silence pass—comfortable, deliberate—before continuing.

"One of the most common mistakes I see in long-term couples," she said, "is the belief that silence means peace. That if something isn't said, then it doesn't exist. That avoiding conflict is the same as solving it. But silence isn't neutral. It doesn't disappear. It collects. It thickens the air. It hardens into resentment. Builds pressure under the surface. And before you know it, the person sleeping next to you becomes a stranger—someone you stopped updating. Someone you stopped inviting in."

My throat tightened.

Her voice stayed calm, but it pressed in close, like a truth you'd been avoiding.

"That's the real danger. Not conflict. Not tension. But the quiet. The space where questions go unanswered, where assumptions take root. Where one person pulls back and the other, unsure and hurt, fills in the silence with worst-case scenarios. Doubt grows. Distance settles in. And little by little, you stop being a team. You stop checking in. You stop being curious about each other."

She leaned forward slightly, her voice quieter now, like she was asking something sacred.

"Now, tell me, is there anything you've never told your partner?" she said.  The question hung in the air like a thread pulled too tight. October didn't move. I could feel her beside me, very still. I swallowed, the words pushing at the back of my throat. My palms were damp, my fingers twitching against the fabric of my jeans. But I spoke.

"My dad opposed our marriage and even threatend me if i went along with it," I said.

October turned to me quickly, eyes sharp with surprise. "What?"

"He told me I was making a mistake. That marrying you would ruin my life. Said I was too young, too naive to know what I really wanted. He didn't stop at words either. There were threats. Insults. It even got... physical, for a moment."

The words felt thick in my mouth, like they'd been buried too long.

"And then," I continued, "he had this conversation with Joseph. I don't know what was said, exactly, but after that, he hated the whole thing even more, like marrying you became some kind of rebellion. An insult to his authority."

I paused, let out a quiet breath through my nose.

"Remember when he didn't come to the wedding?" I asked, glancing up at her. "He said he had work. That it was last-minute. It wasn't. That was a lie. He just didn't want to be there. Not after I stood up to him."

I rubbed the back of my neck, feeling the shame crawl beneath my skin like heat I couldn't cool down. "That day... that was the first time I ever really stood up to him. I told him straight: Either I marry her, or I walk out of your life completely."

I let the silence hang for a second. The memory still stung.

"He didn't show up. Didn't call. Just... absence. Like I wasn't worth the effort if I didn't fall in line. But after that, he got worse. More hostile. Like the fact that I chose you made me some kind of traitor."

The room felt quieter somehow, like the past had pressed itself into the walls.

I looked down again, voice lower now. "I was afraid that if I told you the truth... you'd feel unwelcome. Unwanted. Like you were walking into something already poisoned and I couldn't risk that."

October didn't interrupt. Her lips parted slightly, as if she was about to speak, but nothing came out. I exhaled, long and slow.

 "I was also afraid because... knowing you, October, you would've doubled down."

She blinked.

"You would've tried to earn his love," I continued. "Tried to win him over with kindness, and grace, and patience, because that's what you do. That's who you are. And he would've rejected you. Again and again. Not because of anything you lacked, but because he made his mind up before he ever gave you a chance."

The words cracked slightly at the end.

"I didn't want to put you through that," I said. "You deserved to feel chosen. Not tolerated. Not like you had to prove you were good enough for him. I know him, it would have been a losing battle."

I finally looked at her then. Really looked.

"And maybe that was wrong. Maybe keeping it from you just made it worse in the long run. But in that moment... I just wanted to protect you from one more person who couldn't see you."

The room was quiet again. And then she said it—so calmly, so clearly it cut through the room.

"I've always wanted to work. To have a job."

I turned my head toward her. What? I blinked, caught off guard. "Why?"

She  took this small breath like she'd been holding it in for years. "I know what you're thinking, that you provide everything, and you do. You've always made sure we were taken care of. I've never had to ask. But it wasn't about money, Thomas."

She was looking down now, her thumbs pressing against each other like she was trying to keep herself from unraveling. My chest tightened.

"It was about identity. About having something that was mine. Something that wasn't just being your wife, or their mom. Because somewhere along the line, I stopped recognizing myself outside of those roles."

I didn't say anything. I couldn't. My throat was dry, and I felt like a stranger to her pain—pain I hadn't even realized was growing all this time right beside me.

"Especially after the kids," she went on, "I started feeling this constant, gnawing guilt anytime I wanted time for myself. Even just to think about something unrelated to them felt wrong. Like wanting more made me less of a mother. And that guilt—it's quiet, but it's heavy."

She looked up, "I didn't say anything because I was afraid," she said, voice softer now. "Afraid you'd think I was questioning your ability to provide. That you'd try to fix it with more money or gifts, when it wasn't about that at all. I didn't want you to think you'd failed us. But more than that... I was scared it would shake something in our family. Like if I stepped outside that box, even a little, it might make everything feel unstable. So I stayed silent. And I kept wondering if I was selfish for even wanting more....So, I've been taking perfumery classes."

I turned toward her, startled but smiling, "Really?"

She gave a soft, almost embarrassed laugh. "Online first. Then in a small lab nearby. It's something I've loved since I was a kid, but I always thought it wasn't real enough to count. Not practical. Not serious. But I'm doing it."

She glanced down, fidgeting with her fingers in her lap.

"I didn't tell you," she said, "because it felt like the only thing that was mine. Something that didn't need permission or approval or a budget spreadsheet. And I was afraid that if I said it out loud, you'd treat it like... one more thing that got in the way of real life. Of the schedule. The kids. The bills. Everything."

Her voice caught slightly, but she kept going.

"I didn't want to fight for it. I just wanted to have it."

We both looked ahead again, eyes not meeting, like the floor between us held something fragile we didn't want to step on.

Dr. Mireille spoke gently, her words slow and deliberate, "Do you both see a resemblance in your stories? A pattern?"

October hesitated. Then shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe. Other than the fact that... we didn't really talk to each other."

The therapist nodded, gently. "Yes and as a result, you both made a lot of assumptions about how the other would feel. What they'd say. What they'd need. And then you built entire patterns of behavior around those assumptions. You turned guesses into truths and those are the hardest kinds of truths to dismantle."

I swallowed hard. God, she was right. I'd assumed so much about October. That she was content. That if she was quiet, it meant things were fine. I thought my providing for her was enough—that it was love, and she must've thought my silence meant I didn't want her to do more, to be more. 

October glanced at me, a flicker of something in her eyes, sadness maybe, or the beginning of understanding.

The therapist leaned back slightly, giving us space. "You both tried so hard not to hurt each other, you ended up hurting yourselves and each other, you made quiet decisions made out of fear, not dialogue. Out of protection, not partnership."

That hit me like a stone in the chest. I didn't protect her, not really. I just didn't let her in. And now I could see how lonely that must've felt for her. I thought I was doing the right thing—being steady, strong, unshakeable. But all I'd done was make myself unavailable. Unreachable. and then with the affair, it made everything even worse.

She let the silence breathe for a moment, then looked at both of us again.

"Now, before you leave, let's try something together."

She flipped to a fresh page in her notebook.

"This is a foundation exercise I often use to help couples rebuild emotional fluency. It's called What I Wanted to Say Was... I'll say a scenario, and each of you will say what you actually felt in that moment, even if it's messy. No blame. Just truth."

She looked to me first.

Dr. Mireille's voice was steady, but the question she asked cracked something open immediately.

"Thomas. Start with this one: The day October told you she wanted to divorce you. What did you want to say, but didn't?"

I let out a slow breath. The room felt heavier now warmer, like all the air had narrowed to that single memory I hadn't let myself sit with in full. My chest tightened as I glanced down at my hands, clasped together too tightly in my lap.

"I wanted to say... please don't."

The words came out quieter than I meant them to, but I didn't try to repeat them. My voice cracked slightly on the last word, and I cleared my throat.

"But I didn't say that," I admitted. "I just stood there, like an idiot, shocked and the only thing I actually managed to say was—'But you love me?!' Like that was supposed to explain everything. Like just saying it out loud would make it real again."

Dr. Mireille raised an eyebrow gently, not judging, just following.

"Why wasn't the opposite your first instinct?" she asked. "Why not say, But I love you?"

I looked up, surprised at how easily that question pierced through me. The truth hit harder than I expected, but I didn't look away.

"I don't know," I said honestly. "Maybe because I couldn't understand how she could just stop loving me and ask for a divorce, because who am I, if not her husband? Her lover?"

The words came out lower than I intended, almost like I was admitting something shameful.

"I mean, that's what I've been for so long. That's who I knew myself as. October's husband. The guy who got lucky. The one she chose. Even when things were rocky—even when I wasn't pulling my weight emotionally—I still held onto that. Not because I thought I deserved it, but because it felt like the most solid part of me."

I ran a hand over my face, jaw tight.

"And it wasn't just about the marriage. It was about... being loved by her. The way she sees the world. The way she sees me, even when I couldn't see myself clearly. I think I tied my worth to that without realizing it."

I looked up at the ceiling for a second, then back down.

"When she said she wanted out, it wasn't just the relationship ending. It was a mirror shattering. I didn't know who I was without her love."

My voice dropped to a murmur.

"So yeah, I didn't say 'I love you.' I said 'you love me,' because I needed to hear it like a lifeline. Because without it... I didn't know if there was anything left of the person I thought I was. Because her love... that was the one thing I counted on. Even when I was distant. Even when I shut down or missed the mark completely. Even when I failed to show up for her in the ways she needed most. I thought it was still there, quiet, tucked away somewhere. Waiting for me to finally get it right."

I paused.

"I think... I didn't know how to fight for her without also fighting to keep myself from disappearing."

Dr. Mireille turned to me with the same calm, measured tone.

"October. Let's try a different moment. What did you want to say each time Thomas said, 'Don't wait up, I have work to do'? And what did you actually say?"

"I kept saying okay. I stopped asking when he'd be home. I stopped waiting up. The shift was so gradual I barely noticed it—until one night, I realized the dinner table had grown cold long before the food ever did."

She looked up then, first at Dr. Mireille, then at me. I didn't look away.

"What I really wanted to ask was... do you still love me? Do I still matter to you? Did you stop caring and just never tell me? But I didn't. I bit my tongue every time those questions came close to the surface, because I didn't want to be that woman: clingy, needy, too much, too heavy to hold. I didn't want you to see me as a burden. I didn't want to be the thing you sighed about on your way out the door. So I kept quiet. I convinced myself I was being mature, patient, understanding. That you'd notice on your own. That you'd just know."

She let out a breath, and I could tell how hard this was for her. Every word felt like it was being pulled from a place that had been locked for years.

"And then..." Her voice trembled just slightly and turned to our therapist, "I stopped believing him. That's the part that really broke me. One day I just realized that I didn't think it was about work anymore. I didn't think it had been for a while."

I closed my eyes for half a second, and then opened them again. The guilt was immediate. Heavy. Deserved.

"But I never said it," she went on. "I never confronted him. I didn't want a fight. I didn't want to accuse him of something if I didn't have proof. So I kept pretending I believed it. I smiled. I nodded and I started to resent him."

Her voice was shaking now. Mine would've too, if I had it in me to speak.

"What I wanted to say was it hurts when you disappear like that. It makes me feel like I don't matter. But by then, silence had become a second skin. Not out of peace but out of exhaustion. Out of fear. And that's when I really started to disappear, from myself, from him, from the life. Like I was clinging to a version of him I had invented just to survive the version I got."

The room felt frozen. I didn't breathe. She looked back at me then, and what I saw there knocked the wind out of me. Not anger. Not bitterness. Just... heartbreak. The kind that had lived in her so long, it had settled into something quieter.

She finished, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Instead of all of that what I actually said was nothing. I just turned off the light and went to bed."

Dr. Mireille gave a small, solemn nod. "This is where we begin. With the things you were too tired, or scared, or numb to say. We'll build from here."