Erasing My Toxic Husband

When my husband told me to go buy a fresh box of condoms for him and his mistress, I unexpectedly received a letter. "Dear Chloe, I'm you from five years ago. Tell me, did you end up marrying Ethan, the man who loves you more than life itself? Are you two happy now? Do you have kids? Do you still remember the most important promise we made?" Reading her questions one after another, I placed a hand on my rounded belly, feeling completely numb. Ever since Ethan cheated, nothing was left of the man who once adored me. He treated me like a live-in maid for his mistress, Sienna Bennett. He even had sex with her right in front of me. The muffled, intimate noises from the master bedroom grew louder. Moments later, Ethan walked out with his arm wrapped around Sienna Bennett, her skin covered in red marks. "Sienna doesn't like peach-flavored condoms. Go downstairs right now and get a new box." He paused, his gaze dropping to my swollen belly. His tone sounded like pure charity. "Stop playing games. Once you give birth to this baby, you can keep being Mrs. Hayes!" I looked down at the letter in my hand, picked up a pen, and wrote my reply to the girl from five years ago. "We got married, but we aren't happy. Ethan cheated on me, and I'm getting a divorce. Remember this: the Ethan who would have given his life for you is already dead." "Ethan, Chloe is heavily pregnant. Do we really have to send her out for something like that?" Sienna Bennett clung to Ethan like a siren, her cheeks flushed, putting on an innocent, bashful act. "It's not like it's her first time. Now you're acting shy? You weren't shy in bed just a minute ago." Ethan squeezed her backside, his words growing cruder by the second. "I'll go buy them." A sickening mix of cloying perfume and post-coital musk hit my senses, making my stomach churn violently. I swallowed the urge to throw up, quietly gave in, tucked the letter away, and turned toward the front door. Ethan's eyes caught the paper in my hand, a flicker of suspicion crossing his face. He strode over, snatched the letter from my grip, and his eyes softened slightly when he skimmed the words. His voice took on a rare trace of gentleness. "Chloe, as long as you behave, I'll clear my schedule for your next prenatal checkup." I cut him off, recoiling instinctively. "Don't bother!" The brief warmth on Ethan's face vanished, instantly turning pitch black. "Chloe, don't push your luck!" Sienna Bennett's eyes darkened when she heard him. She stepped softly to my side, her voice sweet and dripping with honey. "Is Chloe still mad at me? I genuinely love Ethan. I don't care about having a title or being kept in the dark..." "Besides, Chloe, you're pregnant. Ethan didn't want to hurt you or the baby. But a man has needs. That's why he turned to me." Her face looked pitiful and fragile, but her eyes flashed with pure malice as her sharp fingernails dug brutally into my palm. The sudden pain made me gasp. I instinctively yanked my hand back. With a dramatic shriek, Sienna Bennett tumbled to the floor. Tears welled in her eyes in an instant, making her look utterly helpless. "Chloe, apologize to her right now!" Ethan carefully pulled Sienna Bennett into his arms, his eyes brimming with distress as he checked the scrape on her wrist. When he looked back up at me, there was only cold disgust. His glare stabbed right through my heart. I opened my mouth, desperate to defend myself. "She's the one who—" My voice died in my throat under his increasingly icy stare. Right. Ethan stopped believing me a long time ago. Ever since the day he first cheated, the day I lost my mind and scratched that woman's face until she was scarred, he had never trusted another word out of my mouth. The realization left a bitter ache in my chest. I chose to stay silent. "Ethan, it's okay. It doesn't hurt. Chloe's just upset. Please don't fight with her over me." Sienna Bennett whispered softly, and Ethan's temper flared out of control. He planted a soothing kiss on her forehead, his eyes full of tender care. "I know how soft-hearted you are, but you don't have to keep putting up with her! She is going to apologize to you!" "Chloe, I'm giving you one last chance. Are you going to apologize or not?!" I watched Sienna Bennett smirk from the safety of Ethan's chest. The man who had been by my side for ten years had become an absolute stranger. "I didn't do anything wrong." "Still unrepentant, aren't you?" "Lock her in the isolation room! She stays in there until she's ready to apologize!" My eyes snapped wide open, all the color draining from my face."Ethan, I'm pregnant!" I stared at the cold, unfeeling man in total disbelief, my voice shaking uncontrollably. He knew better than anyone how badly enclosed spaces frightened me. "Don't want to go in? Then apologize to Sienna!" His voice was dead flat, leaving zero room for negotiation. The terrifying memories of the dark, suffocating room rushed back, paralyzing me with dread. Every muscle in my body locked up. I stared desperately into Ethan's eyes, praying to find a single trace of mercy. There was none. My lips trembled into a bitter smirk. My fingernails bit deep into my palms, and I finally forced myself to bow my head. "Ethan, if Chloe really doesn't want to, please don't force her," Sienna Bennett chimed in. "It's too late for an apology. You're still going in. Consider it a lesson so you learn to behave next time." With that casual remark, Ethan sealed my fate. Ten minutes later, the security guards dragged me to the heavy iron door of the windowless isolation room. The pitch-black darkness waiting inside sent violent tremors through my body. The last shred of my composure shattered, and I began sobbing, begging and thrashing against their grip. Ethan simply stood next to Sienna Bennett, watching me with chilling detachment. "It's just a timeout. Do you really have to put on such an Oscar-worthy performance, Chloe?" Broken and terrified, I screamed at the top of my lungs, "Ethan, I want a divorce!" He let out a sudden, mocking chuckle, stepped up to me, and gripped my chin. With a sickening touch of pity, he wiped a tear from the corner of my eye. "Chloe, I gave you your life. What makes you think you have the right to ask me for a divorce?" He shoved my face away and wiped his fingers on a handkerchief in disgust. "Throw her in!" Right before the heavy iron door slammed shut, I saw Ethan smiling, gently tucking a stray hair behind Sienna Bennett's ear, his eyes drowning in tenderness. At that exact moment, the heart that had long been battered and torn finally shattered into dust. Ethan, loving you is exhausting. I don't want to love you anymore. As the darkness swallowed my consciousness, my mind drifted back five years. Back then, I had just graduated from college. My parents didn't give a damn about me, but I had Ethan, a long-distance boyfriend who loved me with every fiber of his being. Just when I thought we would walk into a happy forever together, a routine physical dropped a bombshell: stage two lung cancer. Cancer. To a twenty-three-year-old girl, it felt like a terrifying, distant death sentence. The moment my parents found out, they blocked my number, leaving only a callous message: "Your brother still needs to buy a house and get married. We don't have money to waste on your medical bills." Crushed by despair, I wanted to give up and die. It was Ethan who quit his prestigious corporate job in the city and rushed back to me. He sold the apartment his parents had bought him, drained every cent of his savings, and tore me out of death's clutches. Watching him grow haggard and hollow-eyed, my heart broke for him. I begged him over and over to let me stop treatment. He would just hold me tight. "Chloe, I'm going to save you. We're going to be together forever." "Please don't give up on us, okay?" His voice shook, laced with desperate pleading. His tears soaked through my hospital gown.That night, I buried my face in my pillow and cried until dawn. There was someone in this world who loved me this much. I had to live. Maybe heaven took pity on us, because the cancer cells miraculously stopped spreading. A year later, I walked out of the hospital cancer-free. To pay for my ongoing recovery and build a future for us, Ethan started a tech startup with a friend. He became buried in work, but he still made time to cook my meals, remind me to take my medicine, and accompany me to every single follow-up appointment. All my friends told me how blessed I was to find a man like him. Even I thought I was the luckiest woman alive. Later, Ethan's company took off, growing into a massive success. He proposed, and surrounded by friends and family, we tied the knot. In our second year of marriage, I got pregnant. When he heard the news, he swept me into his arms and spun me around and around, his eyes shining with pure joy that made me tear up. I truly believed no one on earth could love me more than Ethan did. Yet, three months into my pregnancy, Ethan cheated. I rushed to the hotel and walked in on a woman climbing off him, her body marked with passion. In that instant, pure rage and devastation took over. I lunged at her like a wild animal. I bit her face hard enough to draw blood and leave scars. Ethan kicked me while trying to pull me off her. I lost the baby I had carried for three months. Afterward, Ethan apologized to me over and over, swearing on his life it would never happen again. But I became paranoid, fragile, and deeply insecure. I couldn't stand seeing another woman anywhere near him. I lost my mind even when he met with female business partners. After I threw a cup of hot coffee into a partner's face during a meeting, he finally snapped and locked me in the isolation room. "Chloe, you need time to calm down." Being locked in that pitch-black room gave me severe claustrophobia. A month later, when he finally let me out, I had become the obedient, docile wife he wanted. From then on, the women around Ethan rotated constantly, and I learned to look the other way. No screaming. No fighting. --- "Why hasn't the patient woken up yet? This doesn't make sense." Hushed murmurs floated into my ears. When I opened my eyes, bright fluorescent lights blinded me. I was lying in a hospital bed. A few doctors and nurses stood around me. "Mrs. Hayes, one of your security guards called an ambulance. We tried to reach your family." "Doctor, just tell me. I can make my own decisions," I croaked out, my throat raw. The dull, throbbing ache in my lower abdomen gave me a sick feeling about why they were here. "I'm sorry. The ultrasound shows no heartbeat." The doctor hesitated, choosing his words carefully. I was about five months along. The doctor explained my options, including a procedure they could perform at the hospital that evening. "I want the procedure," I said. "Can we do it today?" "Yes. We can have a room ready this evening." "Could I go home for a few things while I wait?" "Your vitals are stable, so you can go for a few hours. Come straight back if the pain worsens or you start bleeding heavily." I told him I'd be back before six. After the medical staff left, the room fell dead quiet. I pulled back the blanket and instinctively traced the gentle curve of my stomach. I was a pathetic excuse for a mother. I couldn't protect a single one of my babies. My baby should have been born safely and grown up healthy and loved. I pressed my palm against my belly. Tears spilled over my cheeks, hot and bitter. Ethan called while I was getting dressed. "Things are crazy at the office. If you can wait a little, I'll come pick you up." I answered softly, "Okay." I gave him half an hour. He never showed up. Deep down, I knew he wouldn't, but an embarrassing, desperate sliver of hope had lingered anyway. I took a cab back to the estate. As soon as I walked through the gate, the butler handed me a thick stack of letters with a deeply conflicted look on his face. The sender was me. The recipient was also me. I knew who they were from: Chloe from five years ago. I carefully folded the letters and slipped them into my coat pocket, heading for the front door. Before I could reach the handle, the violent sound of shattering glass echoed from inside. My heart seized, and I hurried into the foyer. Sienna Bennett stood in front of the display cabinet. The crystal urn lay shattered into a million pieces across the hardwood floor. Sienna Bennett was grinding my first baby's ashes into the floor under her heels. I'd gathered and sealed them myself. My whole body turned to stone. Staring at the scattered gray dust, my eyes burned blood red. "Who gave you permission to touch that?!" "Oh, Chloe. Ethan said this cabinet is being cleared out for my shoe collection. Your junk has to go somewhere else." Sienna Bennett looked at me with open mockery. "Rot in hell! You deserve to die!" I lunged at her and slapped her as hard as I could. She staggered backward and fell onto the broken glass. By the time Ethan rushed in, I was pinned on top of Sienna Bennett, sinking my teeth violently into her wrist. Blood dripped down my chin. "Chloe! Are you insane?! Let go of her!" "Ethan! She's trying to kill me! She's crazy, save me!" Terrified by my manic fury, Sienna Bennett didn't even dare to scream at first, afraid of pushing me further. The moment she saw Ethan, she dissolved into hysterical sobs. With one final, vicious tug, I tore a chunk of flesh from her wrist. Sienna Bennett immediately passed out from the agony. I ignored the chaos and screaming around me. I crawled back to the cabinet, trembling violently as I gently gathered the spilled ashes off the floor. That was my first baby. Half an hour later, the paramedics barely managed to stabilize Sienna Bennett's bleeding. Only then did Ethan remember me. Seeing me on my knees, silently scooping up the dust, his face twisted in disgust. "Chloe, give me a reason." I kept gathering the ashes. "Give me a damn reason!" I still didn't answer. It wasn't until he ripped the glass bottle from my hands that my face twisted in pure terror. "She stepped on my baby's ashes!!!" "Ethan, that was our child." How could I not want her dead?! Tears poured down my face, my throat closing up in raw agony. Ethan froze, the bottle gripped in his hand, his mind going completely blank. After a long, suffocating silence, he slowly knelt down and placed the bottle back into my trembling hands. "Chloe, we still have the baby you're carrying. You need to move past this." Staring down at the bottle, the doctor's words echoed in my head, and silent tears dripped onto the glass. Ethan, we don't have a baby anymore. You and I will never have a child again in this lifetime.Afterward, Ethan stopped trying to keep me in the house. He went with Sienna when the paramedics took her away. I wrote to my younger self while I waited to go back to the hospital. Her replies came almost as soon as I set my pen down. The butler brought each envelope without a word. I wrote down everything that had happened over the past five years, laying it all bare for my younger self. "Ethan will change." In the last letter I received from five years ago, she asked me, "Why did Ethan stop loving you?" Why did he stop loving me? "You can ask him that yourself." That evening I went back to the hospital for the procedure. Right before they wheeled me into the operating room, hurried footsteps echoed down the hallway, followed by Ethan's familiar, breathless voice. "Doctor, stop! I don't consent to this!" "I'm her husband. You can't do this without me." "Come home with me. Whatever it is, we can talk it out. The baby is innocent!" Ethan grabbed my hand tightly, his voice frantic, laced with desperate fury. He genuinely looked like he cared about this child. But it was already too late. There had been no heartbeat on the ultrasound. The doctor turned to me. "Mrs. Hayes, we have your signed consent. Is this still what you want?" I nodded, trying to pull my hand free. Before I could speak, a voice behind him cut through the hall. "Let go of her. I'll stay with her."