Before you judge me, listen to my whole story.

I met my husband when I was very young. He was 17. I was 16. I liked about him what young girls like about young boys. He was cute and funny, and all the other girls liked him too. He flirted with all the girls but when he flirted with me, I believed it was because I was special. He kissed all the girls too. It was my first kiss and that too I told myself was special for him. I was always quick and funny and eventually he did start liking me and dating me.

I was over the moon that this handsome, popular guy chose me and fell hard for him. With the encouragement of my parents, we eventually married and went on to have 3 kids, one after another. I had my first at 19, if you can imagine. Neither one of us went to college. I didn’t go because in those days, my parents thought it was irrelevant for me because I was a girl. They were happy to marry me off at the ripe old age of 18 because, believe it or not, that’s what young girls where I grew up, did after high school. They found husbands and got married. He was good looking and funny, all I wanted at 18, so I was completely on board with getting married not so long after I graduated from high school.

We were happy, had fun and loved each other as much as two “kids” who should not have been married, could. Life interrupted though, as it often does, and reality set in. It was hard raising 3 kids on my own while still just a kid myself. I spent my days with them while cleaning the house, doing the laundry, shopping and cooking. It was also hard for my husband, to support 5 people, with no education or real job experience. He went to school in the evenings, after spending the day at his low paying job.

While we saw each other less and less he became more and more successful. Life was good financially but for me, lonelier, as I spent all my time with the children and the other moms and their children, on the street where we lived. He was probably lonely too but neither one of us talked about it. We just carried on this way as the kids grew up. Truth be told, we were never taught what to do if we weren’t happy or that being happy should have been a priority.

I’m not sure when I first realized my husband was seeing someone else. Maybe it was when he brought me flowers out of nowhere or started to seem more energetic and upbeat when he and I were physically in the same space. It was like a gut punch to think he was making love to someone else even though he and I hadn’t been intimate for years. I became obsessed with finding out who my “competition,” as I saw her, was.

I’m not proud of this now but one day I parked outside his office, planning to follow him after work. Much to my surprise, he did not go to pick up his paramour at her home, she pulled up right out front, and went in to get him. A modern woman! She was also very attractive AND young. She didn’t look much older than he and I did when we started having children. Another gut punch.

I could not get what his mistress looked like out of my head the days and weeks following seeing her outside his office. Her features were so clear to me that if I had any artistic talent, I could have easily drawn a portrait of her. I started to obsess about looking more like the way she did. “Then,” I thought, “we would be happy again,” but we weren’t happy, at all. That didn’t stop me from buying clothes I thought made me look younger, like jeans. I never bought jeans. I brightened my hair color too and exercised more regularly which in my case meant more than never. I thought that after all my effort, he would surely stop seeing her and realize he only wanted me, not unlike when he and I we were kids.

I didn’t notice that with my new look and all the exercising, I too was getting more energetic and upbeat because of this woman, if you could call her that. She was so young. Around this time some movie stars began having cosmetic procedures. Plastic surgery like nose jobs and facelifts didn’t really go mainstream until the 70’s and 80’s. Before that it was only rich people and celebrities having elective procedures. While we weren’t rich, we were wealthy enough to revamp my face so I could save my marriage.

My surgeon completely understood why I would have surgery to improve my chances of keeping my husband. This was a long time ago when pleasing a husband was all that mattered for a wife and I was no different. The doctor’s concurring and the nurses egging me on was not a surprise. They showed me pictures of noses, chins and whole new faces that would do the trick. I described my younger competition and asked to have whatever was necessary to ensure I won my husband’s attention back.

I should have been nervous about having such serious surgery before it had been done as often as it is today. I wasn’t. I was only focused on looking more beautiful so my husband who I barely saw, would be attracted to me. I would do anything to save my marriage even if it was hanging by a thread.

A funny thing happened to me on the way to my surgery.

I realized that while I wanted the transformation to keep my husband, there was nothing left to keep anymore besides a paycheck. Don’t get me wrong. I needed that paycheck to support me and my kids but after all the years I was married, to face the fact that a paycheck was all that was left between he and I, was a hard pill to swallow. It made me feel sad, for me, for him and for our kids, but a part of me was feeling, dare I say, happy? I couldn’t explain it at the time but all the changes I was making, like working out regularly, updating my wardrobe from “mommy” clothes to clothes that expressed who I was besides being a mother, and having a goal, although a very misdirected goal of keeping my husband, made me feel better than I had in a very long time.

I made a decision to go ahead with the surgery, for me, not him. I also decided not to leave my husband…yet. I could not afford it. Instead, he paid for my surgery. He paid for my recovery, and he supported me while I tried different jobs to see what I wanted to be when I grew up. Growing up, became my goal. It was not something I had an opportunity to do before I got married so I used this time with my new face, my new body and my old husband, to do it. He eventually paid for me to go to school, once I set my mind on being a teacher. My kids were getting older and I missed their younger years. I loved raising them and thought I could be good at working with children. I never would have been able to afford to pay for school on my own.

I did leave my husband when the kids went to college and were on their own. By that time he was long done with his mistress. He wasn’t staying out as much and genuinely seemed to want to be home, and with me. It is ironic that after everything, I didn’t feel the slightest bit relieved or happy to finally hear that he wanted me. The truth? I didn’t even care. After so many years of hardly spending time with him I didn’t feel close to him anymore.

I took myself, my degree, my new face, and my new career, and went on to have a happy life first on my own and then with another grown up who only flirted with me when I met him and only kissed me when we started to like each other.

*This is a fictionalized account of actual events.