Divorce Or Die: The Empress’s New Clothes

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Divorce or Die is a fortnightly series exploring Poppy Miller’s tribulations and triumphs as she navigates infidelity, sex, separation and ultimately, divorce. For more of Poppy’s stories, click here.


Divorce or Die: The Empress’s New Clothes

That I have to think about what my naked body looks like to someone besides my husband feels like insult upon injury. It’s one of the unspoken (or in our case, spoken) marriage pacts: For thinner or for fatter. I did not have two babies, gaining a total of 97 pounds from both pregnancies—along with cellulite, stretched skin and post-breastfeeding nipples—so that I ever have to unclothe myself in front of a new person for sexual purposes. The deal was you marry me, I get old and squishy and OH WELL, love me anyway.

Things have not gone as planned.

Which is why I found myself watching a veritable Adonis doing an exaggerated striptease for me while I contemplated just how naked I needed to get. Could I keep my bra on? (Shit, not wearing one.) Was my muffin top less noticeable with my thong off? Maybe I could artfully drape the comforter over myself… because a down comforter is the essence of sexy.

It’s not totally honest to say I hadn’t thought about this moment before. As married as I’d planned to stay, I had imagined the possibility of being with someone else at some point. Hopefully, that point was after a stint at a detox center where green juice, colonics and daily yoga were the only things on the menu and my body returned to a semblance of what it once was, pre-babies and -forties.

During one of our many, many conversations about his affair, I cried to my husband, “Why couldn’t you have done this to me two years ago? When I still felt pretty good about my face and my body?”

The thing is, I’ve never had the best body image. Which was flipping stupid because I had a great body. To all the young women who bemoan their doughy bellies, round thighs and stubborn baby fat: That’s not fat, it’s collagen! Revel in your smoking hotness! Unless you become some weirdly devoted health-and-fitness addict, your body’s not looking better at a post-childbirth forty than it did at a pre-baby twenty-five (or thirty-five). Trust me on this. I see pretty much anyone younger than me and applaud how gorgeous they are. The taut skin! The shiny hair! The non-creaky joints!

Be naked all the time. Get someone, several someones, to take nude photos of you. Wear clothes that show off as much of your skin and body as possible. Like they tell mothers of newborns, “Enjoy every moment!” Except you really can and should enjoy it. (New mothers just want to throat punch whoever’s saying such tripe.)

Back to the living David statue in my bedroom, in all his 28-year-old nude glory. Though I didn’t know it at the time, this guy is paid to look like a demi-god—with muscles I didn’t think existed outside the Marvel Universe. Yes, a Vogue cover model was the first person to see me [sexually] naked in over a decade. Are you laughing at me, Fates, or was this supposed to be a gift? Trojan horse?

Actually, it was kind of a relief. Even in my 20s—at the height of my bootcamping veganism—there’s no way I had a body comparable to this. Gisele Bundchen barely has a body to match his. The pressure was off.

I didn’t protest as he quickly pulled my top over my head and slid off my denim skirt and underwear. No feather-filled toga for me. At least the lights were dim.

I laid my hand flat against his granite abs and couldn’t help asking, “What do you do to get a body like this?”

He sighed. I wasn’t the first person to ask. Instead of answering he pushed me back on the bed and looked me over. “What do you do? Mum of two and you’re naturally a skinny bitch?”

My turn to sigh. I’d lost five kilos in three months because I don’t sleep or eat. “You’re the first new guy to see me naked in twelve years.”

He smiled. (God, he’s cute.) “Lucky me. It’s like you’re a virgin.”

That’s exactly what I felt like. A virgin.

Except I wasn’t.

I wrapped my legs around his ripped torso, pretending not to notice the soft folds of my stomach.


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About Author

Poppy is an expat writer from Baltimore and the woman behind our "Femme Infidèle" and "Divorce or Die" series. If you want to share any of your experiences, write to Poppy. She loves hearing from other women and trading love and war stories.

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