The romantic thing every woman wants to be told by her husband, ( sharply, ) that she's just somewhere amusing to put his prick until death solves the problem for him.

( if that's an extremely unfair reach on the precise meaning of his words—

and it is

—her frustration is a palpable thing. she doesn't move from the doorframe, though she'd let it close behind her; her jaw works, an expression emptied of warmth or willing. when she speaks again, it's quiet and flat. )

I didn't assume that.

You're right, I knew what I was signing up for, and I assumed that it was—I assumed that our lives might fucking intersect, at any point. ( the bite is out of it. this feels like dismissal, not a resolution, and she doesn't know how to push back. ) That you would be honest with me. That I would know what was going on, that we would do things together.

I thought we were going to have a life. Not just a diversion for you.