The bet (1)

When my wife told me that she wanted a divorce a year ago, it seemed like the end of the world to me. We'd been together since our sophomore year at college and had gone through the ups and downs of a typical marriage in the nine years since we graduated.

I thought we were typical, anyway. What I guess I hadn't realized was that we'd gotten lazy and taken each other for granted.

Like most people do over time, we'd each gained some weight - I was carrying a bigger beer belly around than I liked - and our passion for each other had mellowed a bit, I suppose.

We worked, we took care of the house, played with our pets and went out on the weekends, like most people. No kids, thank God. I thought (when I bothered to think about it at all) that everything was fine in our marriage until Sharon decided that there should be more to life than this. She asked me to move out and I did.

We're still friendly towards each other - there wasn't any cheating or nasty fights, just the decision to not