“We’re getting divorced,” he said bluntly.

She laughed.

There was no way he was serious—couldn’t be. In the 10 years they’d been together—five of them married—he’d never once raised his voice. They’d never had a real argument. Their biggest fight had been the one time he forgot to put the toilet seat down and she’d fallen into the bowl in the middle of the night. Even then, after her furious ranting, he’d apologized so earnestly that they’d ended up having incredible make-up intimacy in the shower where she’d gone to clean up.

This? Divorce? It sounded like a bad joke.

But he didn’t smile. He didn’t take it back.

She stopped laughing, heart stalling in her chest. “I’m sorry, what?”

He set his spoon down gently, like even now he didn’t want to cause a scene. “I don’t think we’re happy. Not really. I think we just got… used to each other.”

Used to each other. Like an old sweater—comfortable, familiar, but stretched thin and threadbare in places they hadn’t noticed until now.

She blinked at him, mind racing through birthdays and vacations, Sunday brunches and Netflix nights, all of it suddenly feeling like a slideshow of someone else’s life. “So that’s it? After everything? After eight years, you just decide we’re not happy?”

“No,” he said softly. “I think we decided that a long time ago. We just didn’t say it out loud until now.”

She looked around the kitchen. The table with its chipped edge from when they moved in. The calendar still marked with dinner plans, vet appointments, little reminders of a life that had once felt full but had somehow grown hollow.

She didn’t cry. She wasn’t even sure she could.

Because the truth was—he wasn’t wrong.

They were the golden couple. High school sweethearts turned college soulmates. Everyone thought they’d make it. And they had—by all appearances. No scandals, no betrayals. No cheating. Just a steady, dependable partnership. Contentment. But not passion. Not fire.

“I thought we were doing okay,” she said, softer now. Maybe trying to convince him. Maybe trying to convince herself. “We never cheated. We were always kind.”

“Yeah,” he said, eyes meeting hers. “We were good teammates. But we weren’t really in love. Not for a long time.”

The words stung. Not because they were harsh—but because they were true.

There was no screaming. No accusations. No begging.

Just the quiet, heavy realization that they’d outgrown a life they’d never really questioned. A life that had been safe, steady, and deeply, deeply quiet.

And for the first time in years, the silence between them actually meant something.

In the weeks that followed, the divorce unfolded the same way their marriage had—calm, rational, and unfailingly polite. They sat side by side at the kitchen table, just as they always had, only this time with spreadsheets and lawyer referrals instead of coffee and toast. There were no battles over furniture, no resentment in dividing up the books or deciding who would keep the dog—they agreed she would, and he could visit anytime. They sold the house, split the proceeds evenly, and hugged after signing the papers. It wasn’t bitter. It wasn’t dramatic. It was two people who had loved each other in a quiet, incomplete way, finally letting go with the same gentle care they’d once used to hold on.