My Wife Kept Saying Her Ex Would Never Disappoint Her—So I Called a Divorce Lawyer and Let Her Chase Him

For six years, every mistake I made was measured against the same man: her perfect ex-boyfriend. I tried patience, conversations, apologies, and self-improvement, but nothing was ever enough because I was competing with a version of him that only existed in her head. Then one dinner, over a plate of pasta I cooked myself, she said the words one time too many. So I decided to fix the mistake she kept reminding me she had made.