My Fragile Male Ego

My Fragile Male Ego

Copyright 2022, by B. Watson

One of my favorite stories is Jezzaz's Words, in which a cuckolded husband completely destroys his wife and her paramour--as well as their relationship--with little more than a few carefully chosen words. While explosive, extravagant revenge can be a lot of fun, there's something about a thoughtfully-crafted surgical strike that shows us our own weakness and cruelty. Bones knit and stitches fade, but realizing that you're a completely worthless douchebag...yeah, that's going to leave a mark.

This is my attempt at that sort of thing. If long, dialogue-heavy, completely sex-free stories in which the MC tries to take the high road aren't your bag, please feel free to give this one a miss.

It was our last argument, after I had Patricia served with the papers, but before we went to court. We were both pretending, playing a part for each other. I was pretending that I was still willing to talk things out, even though the coffin lid had slammed shut on our marriage as soon as the private investigator showed me a picture of her making out with Bradley Jacobs. By five minutes into their first video, it was in the grave and I was dumping dirt on the lid.

As for Patricia, I don't know exactly what she was pretending. Maybe that her continued infidelity was still a legitimate matter for discussion? Maybe that there was some way for us to reasonably agree that we would remain married while she fucked Bradley on the side? My wife, Patricia Wilson, nee Anderson is a lawyer--in fact, Bradley is one of her paralegals--and finding ways to be "reasonable" about completely unreasonable things is what she does for a living. At home, I suppose she does it pro bono: the phrase "Matt, be reasonable" has been a regular refrain for most of our 25-year marriage.

After I served her with the papers, though, she added another phrase to her repertoire: "fragile male ego." As in, "Matt, this isn't about me and about who I do or don't sleep with. It's about your fragile male ego."

God, I hate that phrase. And, sure enough, we weren't too far into this last discussion before she decided to throw it down:

"Matt, if you could see past your fragile male ego, you'd realize that this doesn't threaten you at all." She gave me her most reassuring--her most reasonable--smile. "I don't love him, and in a few months we'll both move on. You and I can still ride off into the sunset together."

I had to give Patricia credit: she had a lot of balls. While she was saying this, she was fingering the stem of a glass of her favorite unoaked Australian chardonnay, which was sitting right next to a manila folder on our kitchen table. The folder, in turn, contained my petition for divorce as well as a few of the racier photos that the PI managed to capture.

In other words, the Titanic had hit the iceberg, the band was playing "Nearer My God to Thee," and they were leading the women and children to the lifeboats. Meanwhile, there was Patricia, saying that if I could be reasonable, if I could just get past my fragile male ego, we might still be able to make it to port.

The thing is, Patricia thought we were still negotiating, but I was done with working things out. I was going for closure.

"Patricia, let's stop for a second," I said, cutting her off mid-sentence. "You keep talking about my fragile male ego, telling me that, if I could just get beyond that, we'd all be fine. What exactly to you mean by that? By fragile male ego?"

She frowned for a moment, a little miffed about being interrupted. "Well, it's really simple, Matt. You're afraid of competition. You're worried that, somehow, you won't measure up." She smiled at me again--fond, slightly condescending. "But, honey, you don't need to worry. You're my guy. You're my man."

"And what is Bradley?"

She colored. "Bradley...well, Bradley's just a plaything. Like a dildo or a piece of exercise equipment. I'm not going to replace you or fall out of love with you. You have nothing to worry about."

I gave her a little frown, the slightly-dumbfounded look that husbands master when they want their wives to feel superior--usually so we can get away with something. "So, to be clear, you think that I'm worried that you're going to fall out of love with me, or replace me with a younger model?" She nodded, the fond smile widening. "And you see me as being a bit fragile about this? You think I need to be reassured?"

"Exactly! And sweetie, you have nothing to worry about."

I spoke slowly, as if I was piecing this out. "And somehow, this fragility is related to me being a man?"

She patted my hand. Fond. Condescending. "Oh, honey, it's not just you. All men have fragile egos." Her smile widened. "That's part of what we wives do. We prop up our guys, build you up."

I wanted to yell at her, ask her how in the hell screwing a 25-year-old was supposed to prop me up, but I knew that would only make her dig in her heels. I wasn't surprised that Patricia bought into the whole pop psychology women-are-stronger-than-men shtick--we'd been dancing around this nonsense for years. But I was tired, we were almost at the end, and I was done dancing.

"You know, Patricia, you've been using that phrase for a while," I said, eyes boring into her. "I've let it slide--one of the things I've learned after 25 years with you is to pick my battles. But if there's one thing I want to leave you with today, it's an understanding of just how much that whole argument is total bullshit." She started to object, but I kept going. "The reason people focus on the 'fragile male ego' is because it seems like an abnormality. It's like the testicles--how many times have you seen some silly video where a guy gets hit in the nuts?"

She nodded. She was going to let me go with this for a bit before pulling me back in. "A lot."

"Yup. It's funny--at least to women--because men always seem so strong, and that one thing is enough to make most men fall over and puke. Suddenly, big strong scary man is curled up in a ball, trying to breathe. You see what I mean?"

"Yeah, but--"

"Now, it wouldn't be funny to watch a woman in the same situation, would it?" She nodded. "But why not? If one person curling up in pain is funny, why isn't another?"

"Because it's abuse. A man hitting a woman is abuse."

"And a woman hitting a man isn't?" I shook my head. "Never mind, we're getting off track. The point is, watching a woman curling up in pain isn't funny because we're taught to see women as fragile and weak, so the idea of making a woman cry is neither strange nor particularly humorous."

"I don't get your point."

I took a deep breath. "The point is, it's the same thing with egos. When I go to work every day, my friends--my friends!--make jokes about my sexual abilities, the size of my dick, the size of my gut, my thinning hair, and anything else they can find to tease me about. Now imagine if your friends did that to you. Imagine walking into the office and immediately getting hit with comments about every area that feels vulnerable to you. How would you feel?"

"God," she said. "I can't imagine a woman doing that to a friend. Definitely not all the time."

"But that's how it is with us big, strong men. We shrug it off, throw a comment back, and go about our day." Now I was the one patting her hand. Fond. Condescending. I wondered if she noticed. "In fact, the only area where I let myself feel fragile and vulnerable is in this house. That's where I take off the armor, show my soft pink underbelly, and trust you not to take advantage of it. What you see as my fragile male ego was me relaxing in the one place in the world where I felt like I could be fragile. Do you get me?"

Patricia smiled and nodded. I could see her gathering her forces for another attack. "But that's my point, Matt! You are safe here. You can be vulnerable. I'm not going to leave, or throw away what we have because of a...because of a fling!"

I took off my glasses, rubbed the top of my nose. "You're still missing it, Patricia. I trusted you when you said I was the world's best lover, even if I knew that, objectively, it wasn't true. Hell, I've only had one lover for the last 25 years--not exactly a lot of experience!" I chuckled. "I trusted you when you said I was enough for you, that my dick was perfect for you, that my body still aroused you. I took you at your word, even when I knew you were just building up my ego. With you, I chose to be fragile, because I knew I could trust you."

"And I'm so glad you do--"

"AND you betrayed that!" I yelled, slamming my hand down on the table. Her eyes widened and she stopped talking. I took a deep breath and tried to find my calm voice again. "About six months ago, I started noticing that you weren't taking as much care with my fragility. I noticed your expressions when I took off my shirt, the way you closed your eyes when we had sex. I caught the snarky comments about going to the gym or laying off the beer." She looked up at me, stricken, as I continued. "I noticed that you stopped talking about your day, or asking about mine. I noticed that you weren't there with me. Even before you started having sex with Bradley, I knew that you weren't safe for me anymore. You weren't going to protect my vulnerability."

"Matt, I--" she paused. Had the lawyer run out of words?

I looked into her eyes. Hard. They were shining, and I'm pretty sure mine were, too. "I tried to fight against it, Patricia. I asked you out to dinner more, commented on your clothes. I tried to plan more vacations, more time for just us. I tried to let you know how special you were to me. I dressed better. I started going to the gym. I was hoping you'd remember how special I was to you." I looked down at my hands. Not now. I couldn't let her see the tears. Couldn't be vulnerable. Not anymore.

"It didn't work. You found reasons to cancel dinner, reasons that we couldn't take vacations. When I complimented your clothes, I could see that you were worried that I'd noticed you were dressing for him. And when I sent flowers to your office, I never heard back." I looked up at her. "Later, when you started picking fights to get out of having sex with me, I knew I had failed. You'd forgotten that I was special, and you well on your way to no longer being special to me."

"I never picked fights to get out of sex!"

I groaned. Seriously? That's her takeaway? "Patricia, can you just be honest? At least with yourself, if not me. You've been pushing me away for half a year." She looked up at me for a second, but then back down at her hands. Fascinating hands. I shrugged. "Anyway, yes, my ego was fragile then. I spent a lot of time in the office with the door closed, mourning our relationship. Trying to put on the strong face that I wear at work, so you couldn't see how deeply you were hurting me. I started finding reasons to be out of the house, so I didn't have to spend time with the one person who could wound me, and who was now so clearly willing to do so."

She looked stricken. I gave her a little smile and patted her hand again. "But you'll be happy to know that my fragile ego healed. I found other things to do, other people to make me feel special about myself." Her head whipped up, a question in her eyes. I chuckled. "No, I didn't cheat on you, but I have noticed that some of the women at the gym don't seem too repulsed by my body these days. Regardless, by the time I had evidence and was talking to a lawyer, you wouldn't even know that my fragile male ego had ever been hurt."

Were we done? I thought so--after all, I'd said what I needed to say and I thought maybe she'd finally heard me. Maybe now we could finally move on. But, of course, I was married to a lawyer, and there was no such thing as a lost cause.

"But Matt, there was never any need for that," she cried. "Yes, I'll admit that I've been...distracted...lately, but I never stopped loving you. You were always first in my world. I'm sorry I didn't see how fragile you were, how much I was hurting you--"

Patricia kept talking, kept weaving beautiful pictures with her words, but I didn't hear her. There was that word again. Fragile. She still didn't get it, and I realized that she probably never would. I was done trying to do this the nice way.

"Patricia, stop," I snapped. I think she could hear the anger in my voice, although I was trying to hide it. I took a long, slow breath. Let it out. "You still don't get it, do you? You still think this is about my fragility, my fragile male ego, don't you?"

"Honey, it's nothing to be embarrassed about. All men--"

"All people, Patricia. We all have fragile egos. And we trust the people we care about to protect them."

"Well, yes, of course, but men are especially fragile. I mean--"

"I'm going to let you in on a little secret." I leaned in, like I was taking her into my confidence. I was trying so hard to fight the sarcasm, but she wasn't making it easy. "Patricia, I have spent most of the last 25 years trying to figure out ways to be honest with you without bruising your ego. When you asked me if this color lipstick worked on you or if this dress made you look fat, I had to scramble for an answer that would not hurt your feelings, but also wouldn't let you leave the house looking like a deranged clown or an overstuffed sausage." Patricia flushed red and her eyes widened. She wasn't used to this much honesty.

Suddenly, I realized that I was having fun.

"Patricia, when I say things like 'Honey, I'm not sure that lipstick goes with that blouse' or 'Wow, could you change? I'm not sure I'm comfortable with having our neighbors drool over your boobs all night,' I was giving you an out. I was pretending that I was insecure about what I was saying or that my 'fragile male ego' was at risk. Do you know why I did that?" She shook her head. "It was because I didn't want to put your ego in danger."

"That's...that's...nonsense!" Patricia fumed. "I can remember more than a few times when you told me in no uncertain terms that something didn't look good!"

I chuckled. "Oh, I'll admit I screwed up from time to time," I said. "I think we can both remember what happened when I commented on your hooker eyeshadow back in the day. Or when I told you that, yes, that dress made your ass look big. Big, hurt eyes. A cold 'thank you for being honest,' and a week or two of subzero temperatures in the bedroom. I learned quickly that honesty is definitely overrated when it comes to giving your wife your opinion."

"So you've been lying to me for 25 years?" Patricia looked like she was ready to explode. Time to end this.

"Let's just say I've given you a selective and carefully edited version of the truth. I've told you that you are the most beautiful woman in the world. That your visits to the gym have shaved a decade off your age. That your ass puts the Venus de Milo to shame. I've given you extravagant compliments that, like your compliments to me, were designed to show you how I see you...and, in the process, build you up and shore up your fragile ego."

"My ego isn't fragile!"

"Patricia, you've got a fat ass."

She looked at me like I'd just punched her in the chest. "What?!?"

I smiled at her. "You have stretch marks. Your breasts droop. Your roots are graying and your teeth are getting pretty yellow. Those expensive creams you've been buying aren't hiding the lines on your face or the sag under your chin. Honey, it's time to start thinking about aging gracefully, because fighting it isn't working anymore."

She gasped, her eyes wide. A bunch of hits, and they all found their mark. "Jesus Christ, Matt!"

"Patricia, take that feeling you have right now. Think about it. Now imagine that I told you I was fucking some cute young thing at the office. Someone 10-20 years younger than you, with a firm little ass, perky breasts and a tighter pussy. Trying out all her tricks on me, because the relationship is still new and she's still bringing her A game. Imagine me coming home to you from her a couple times a week. Now how's your ego doing? Feeling a little fragile yet?"

Patricia looked a little gray around the gills. "I...yeah," she sputtered.

"Here's what you never seemed to understand, Patricia. I'm not blind. You are not the most beautiful woman in the world. Hell, I could probably go out the front door and find a half dozen women in our neighborhood who are objectively more attractive than you." I looked at her again, but her face was still down. I could see tears on her cheeks. "You aren't the prettiest or the smartest or the funniest. But you WERE those things to me. You WERE the most beautiful, the most fun. The best. When I saw all your flaws, I also saw the life we've lived together. Your breasts droop because you used them to feed our children. Your ass is fat because you carried them in your body. You have laugh lines because we laughed together. I used to look at the roadmap of your body and see the miles we traveled together. I cherished every one of those miles and the marks they left behind."

She looked up, and it was like the last scene in a boxing movie, the one right before the final knock out. She sniffled. "And now? What do you see now?"

Jesus, I thought, she's asking for it. It would be so easy. Part of me--hell, a big part of me--wanted to throw the knockout punch, the one that would leave her so destroyed that she'd spend the next few years careening from bed to bed, trying to prove that she still had it. And here she was, chin out, waiting for it to land...

But that was the thing. It wasn't about landing the knockout punch anymore. In fact, it wasn't even really about Patricia. She had looked in the mirror, saw time ticking away, and decided that she could find the fountain of youth in a younger man's dick. And then, when she was discovered, she tried to tough it out with defiance and slick words. I think it was clear to both of us that she'd been weak and small...and now she was going to be alone.

As for me, I'd cried my tears in my car, behind my office door, in the park a mile from my house. I'd spent months hiding my pain from my wife while I fought--then mourned--the death of my marriage. Now I had to plan for the rest of my life. The first step was asking myself what I wanted to see in the mirror every morning. A guy who took a cheap shot? A guy who won some meaningless contest with a weak woman who fucked her life away? A bully?

No. I wanted to see the same thing I saw now--a merciful man. A good man. A man with integrity.

I took another deep breath and covered Patricia's hand again. "What do I see now? Now I see a woman I spent some of the best years of my life with. I see someone I trusted with my fragility, until I couldn't trust her anymore." I gave her hand a squeeze. "I see someone who I'm really going to miss."

She rallied, pasting a smile on her face. It was lopsided, and it didn't work with the tears. "It doesn't have to be this way," she said. "We could find our way back."

"No, we can't." I sighed. "You were right about one thing, Patricia. I'm not fragile, but my trust was. I'm never going to be able to take off the armor again. I'm never going to be able to let you in. Maybe we could live together. We could share a bed, take vacations, make some memories. But the thing is, I'd always be watching. Wondering if you're judging my body. Wondering if you're comparing me to someone else in bed. Wondering if you're staying because you love me or just out of habit."

"It's not like that--"

"I'm not going to live like that, Patricia. I figure I've got another 30 or 40 years, and I don't want to spend them with someone I don't trust, pretending that I feel safe and protected when I really don't. I don't deserve that. And, honestly, if you really love me, you won't ask me to go through that."