[...] My residual guilt isn’t about knowing that I was never going to love my husband the way I needed to again—the way I believe people should love each other if they are going to use up all the days of their fleeting lives on each other. I don’t feel guilty anymore for the fact that I could already glimpse the picture on the other side of our intense parenting years—our children busy with their own lives, at college and out-of-state jobs, our retirement years alone together—and knew I could not stay inside that frame. My leaving was never about retribution for any fault of my husband’s or any mistake he made, but rather that I believe with the core of my being that everyone has the right to choose what ships to go down with versus when to get into a lifeboat and save themselves. There is no one who doesn’t have the right to leave a consensual relationship between adults: no marital atrocities required.