ManyWriters

Eight years into our marriage, my husband, Julian Croft, abruptly announced he wanted us to have a sexless marriage.
He said work was too demanding, the pressure too great, and he simply had no energy left for our private life.
I tried to convince myself this was perhaps just a normal phase, a common dip that seasoned marriages sometimes experienced. But then, as I was mindlessly scrolling through TikTok, I stumbled upon a familiar figure.
The caption was stark and to the point: Is my boyfriend touch-starved?
In the video, the man whose hands seemed to ache to caress every inch of the girl’s skin was none other than my own husband—the very same man championing our new, sexless life.

Eight Autumns of Lies

Honestly, at this point, I had absolutely no interest in playing their games any longer.


I was just about to tap into her profile to block the account when I noticed her follower count was skyrocketing at an astonishing rate.


Julian, who had alwaysI had anticipated a typical response, but the video opened, shockingly, with both of them in floods of tears.


In their telling of the story, I was painted as an utterly selfish individual.


Julian claimed I had manipulated his impulsiveness and remorse, tricking him into signing the divorce papers only to immediately evict him from our home.


Chloe alleged that I had promised to support her financially but then withdrew that support over a trivial mistake, remaining indifferent to her desperate pleas.


At the most poignant moments of their tale, they clung to each other, weeping, their eyes and noses flushed red.


To the viewers, they appeared as a pair of tragic lovers, undeniably forced together by my persecution.


Chapter 7