I tried to convince myself that when my girlfriend had surgery it was no biggie. She insisted it was something she had always wanted, something that would make her feel better in her skin. I was on her side completely or I thought I was. But afterwards, the atmosphere around us shifted in tricky ways that could not be ignored. During the first weeks friends, strangers and coworkers gave her compliments in reguhlar doling out doses. I told her how great she looked, but I began to feel something tighten up inside me. I began to take account of the long preparations, the adequate wardrobe and the novel slow distance when we went out together. It was not jealousy in the usual sense of the word. I can only say I felt as if she were shifting herself around into new shoes which I was not intitled to know about. Before this whe had enjoyed an unequal hold on each other. After this I felt I was already striving to catch up and be alongside her. And in so doing the rhythm of our lives shifted. It was not the operating table with flesh and blood before and after where the trouble lay. It was in the inner flux that the real mystery lay. She had outgrown weaknesses I had to face about myself. The girl I knew was not the girl she had become and neither of us knew how to bridge if") at all that unbridged gap.
I did not question my wife about the decision made to undergo a cosmetic procedure when she decided to do it after we had our fourth child because I simply had no idea that it would make a significant impact on the two of us. She desired to feel a bit more like herself and I agreed that she should. However, it changed after surgery. She was receiving compliments like strangers and uploading more photos and smiling in such a manner I have never seen me in years. And I was proud of her, and I felt like the part of me that was out of place-as though the balance of us had been changed. It wasn't about the looks. It was of accommodating to this new confidence which she bore. I recall one of the times when I was in a party at a friend of mine and one of the individuals came to her and said that she was too young to have four children. I laughed but it hurt me more than I anticipated. That evening we spent hours, actually hours, discussing the change as one that made her feel empowered but made myself doubt the comfort that I felt. It was not time that put it right, it was sincerity. We became even sicker than before and it was just as soon as I ceased pretending that it made no difference to me that she realized the source of it.