The Husband She Took For Granted Novels & Stories

"My husband forgets his keys every morning, he leaves his socks everywhere, and he snores like a dying whale, but he's mine. And I'm his. That's what the ring means." Something in my chest tightened. I looked away, suddenly finding the pattern on the tablecloth fascinating. "Your husband sounds... lovely," I said carefully. "Oh, he's a nightmare." She grinned, clearly delighted. "But he's my nightmare. He brings me coffee in bed every morning, even when I'm grumpy. He leaves me little notes on the mirror. He tells me I'm beautiful even when I look like I haven't slept in three days." She sighed dramatically. "It's disgusting, really. All that love."

During a parent-child activity at kindergarten, the teacher asks the children to draw what they want to be when they grow up. The other kids draw princesses, dinosaurs, and astronauts, but my five-year-old son, Evan Jepsen, draws a cell phone. Across its screen, he's written a message in crooked letters. "Incoming call from Annette." "Why do you want to be a phone?" the teacher asks, puzzled. "Because Daddy loves his phone more than anything," Evan replies earnestly. "When Mommy asks him to come to dinner, he gets annoyed. But whenever Annette calls, he smiles right away." The classroom falls silent, and I stand frozen in place. "Once, Mommy had a fever of 102°F, but Daddy said he

Lynette Kensington's rules took effect on the second day of our marriage. "Your monthly spending is capped at 2,000 dollars. For any single purchase over 100 dollars, photograph the receipt and send it to me for approval. It's not that I'm cheap. I'm helping you learn how to budget. You've never had any discipline with money," she claimed. I thought she had a point. So for three years, buying a single jacket meant budgeting for half the month, and replacing a pair of contact lenses meant waiting for her approval. Then, last month, I found a supplementary card statement tucked inside the pocket of her trench coat. The cardholder was Jayden Scott, her Administrative Director. The transact

"I want you, Arabella. Not as Ethan's wife. Not as a woman I rescued, and certainly not as some helpless victim who needs my wealth." He paused, letting the raw sincerity of his words settle into my chest. "I want you simply because you are you." I opened my mouth to speak, but no sound came out. My thoughts were a chaotic mess. "You heard what your own son said about me, didn't you?" I asked, my voice cracking slightly as the humiliation from earlier resurfaced. “We've been married for over three years... I've known him even longer than that. Yet he thinks I am worthless, boring, and incapable of evoking any real feelings in him. How am I supposed to believe you see me any differently after

For the fact that he noticed her and chose not to ignore her made her happy. Richard grunted softly, he growled annoyingly. “You should learn to take care of yourself. I can't go through the same stress I went through yesterday, it's frustrating. If you can't take care of yourself then you're not worth enough to be a wife.” He nagged harshly. His rasping voice caused her a flinch, she flustered her eyes at him as she didn't seem to understand his sudden behavior. It was odd. “I'm sorry, I completely forgot to turn on my tracker app notification.” She apologized perturbedly, she didn't know what induced him to scold her, all she could do was pick at her nails.

Now I am more interested to hear what she has to say. I thought she just wants to lecture me about hurting her daughter. “But after he left her, my husband was never the same, he looked lost and miserable most of the time. He would be happy with us but then zone out often, it was like something was missing in his life but I was stubborn. I had my husband all to myself and didn’t care at all how miserable he was as long as he was all mine. Years past and the thing of him zoning out became a norm in the house. We would just let him be and pretend like his not there until he comes out of it and join in the conversation.” She looks sad when she tells me this.

He felt annoyed with his wife, who, according to him, rarely appreciated him as a husband. "Did she forget that she was the one who was chasing me? If she hadn't been pregnant with Pamela, maybe we wouldn't have married." Aeron poured his brandy again. It was his third glass. "Woman, I must always understand and obey all her wishes, but she can never understand others. So far, all she cared about was wealth and power. She also always felt less, less, and less. Yet our life is already so sufficient. Tch!" Aeron gulped down his drink. He was about to pour his fourth glass when something in his office window caught his eye.

She wondered what if she hadn't become stupid and too self-respecting to use that relationship, and she almost threw the door open. Just almost. She let out a long, sad groan. A deal is a deal, and you've already taken your share. Now she's back to where she started, stuck with a husband for a year who doesn't like her—but sometimes wants to have sex until his mind clears. And she was completely broken. Oh, that's right, you did the right thing.

“I’m sure you didn’t expect me to know about the cabin, or what my husband does for a living.” It was hard to swallow the pineapple in my mouth so I kept chewing. “You know what your husband does? I don’t mean to ask that question in the prying sense.” “I understand.” She looked into the oven, turned it off and pulled out a ready to eat turkey. “I know what my husband does, and I made my peace with it before I married him. I go to sleep with a heavy heart when he’s not home, but I balance that by cherishing every minute I have with him. Isn’t that what you do with Mr. Zaverio?”

I was still feeling horrible that so many others had been able to tell the truth while I, her husband, had been blissfully unaware of the amazing accomplishments of my wife. I truly had underestimated everything about her. I could only hope to begin to rectify that now. “Not long,” I said, frowning. “Certainly not long enough.” Ben nodded with understanding. “She truly is a remarkable woman.” “She is.” “It was a shame for our pack to lose her.” “It was.” Hell, it still was a shame. Not just for the pack, but for me. If I had known what I had. If I had… No. I could have known if I had taken the time to truly see her. Instead, I constantly took her for granted, turning the other way, assuming