Is It Over Yet?

I went into this one ready to be annoyed beyond belief(because how was I meant to believe two MCs could come back from infidelity BETWEEN them) but......

I expected excuses. I expected justifications. I expected rewriting of history to make the aggrieved party deserving of what he got. I didn't get that. (thank fuck)

What I got was instead more gut wrenching.

I got anger and betrayal and disbelief.

I got drawn out resentment. No one conversation to fix a 'misunderstanding' for this book. Derek got room to feel and express his resentment. And boyyyyyy, did he!

"We were going through a rough patch, remember?"

"Not enough for me to put my dick in another man." Welp—

It was hit, after hit, after HIT. And I was living for every one of those hits, btw. Derek has a degree of passive aggression that I can't help but admire. He found a way to weave that shit into EVERY. DAMN. CONVERSATION. 💀

The audacity of your husband asking to 'put this on hold until we get back' and the 'this' in question is the time he went to a bar and cheated on you, then came home and told you about it. 💀

The jokes write themselves.

Out loud lol @Rhys describing how uncomfortable he's been feeling about approaching his husband in the 4 months since he confessed to having cheated on him like..... 🤯FUCK YOU THOUGHT, BB? How were you expecting this to play out? Explain it like we're 5.

I could say that I rate Rhys for taking his lashings with good grace, but honestly, nah. If you cheat on your husband, nobody's going to applaud you for shit. Taking it silently is bare minimum.

Anyway, back to what I was saying.

I got a realistic if heartbreaking portrayal of Derek carrying shame for things he didn't do.

Asking himself what he could have possibly done to push Rhys to this. (spoiler alert:nothing)

Feeling embarrassed about telling people what happened between them. Torn between needing to vent and get emotional support from his people, and a strong desire not to throw Rhys to the wolves.

Torn about the (very natural) angry reactions towards Derek from his friends. Because he wanted to be mad at Rhys but didn't want everyone to be mad at Rhys FOR him. *this was always an unreasonable ask. There are cats you can never put back into the bag once they're out.

Feeling guilty and like he's throwing their relationship away because he wasn't ready to forgive an unforgivable offense.

And then feeling like he's betrayed himself and his code of beliefs when he did finally consider forgiving.

I feel like although I don't personally agree with the resolution this got, I could empathize with Derek and the reactions or decisions he took at different points during this week.

The bits that really broke me were all the times Derek had to physically restrain himself from his natural instinct to love and be loving towards Rhys because he couldn't trust him anymore.

The times he'd pull away from kisses, the time he stopped mid-sex because he physically couldn't make himself go on with all the ideas of Rhys fucking someone in his head, the time he had to ask if they were okay to continue without condoms, which they'd never needed before, the times Rhys would come home late to find him spiraling due to insecurity.

This book did an exceptional job of portraying how a thoughtless, uncaring act can have a butterfly effect of repurcussions.

Derek went from a carefree happily married person to a traumatized man who had to deal with an unexpected betrayal, had to second guess every little thing going forward, who had to go back in time and overanalyze everything to see where it all went to shit, who had to sit in the dark and ask himself how this could possibly have happened.

This man had to learn how to trust his husband again with such a tragic backdrop and many times he failed and had to pick himself back up.

I understand rebuilding trust a day at a time, but how long does it take to start trusting that your person of 9 years won't slip up like he did before and hurt you in the same specific way? 18 years? Two for each one that came before? Can you ever really get past that?

I guess this story hinges on the fact that love is enough but at some point you really have to ask yourself, is it? Because it reads like there are some things that you can say you forgive, but it changes you.

The only reason I could stand this whole thing, though? Rhys never had an answer for 'why'. Which, paradoxically, was also a problem. Like okay, you're saying you don't know why you chose to do this, but if it was a whim without basis, how can you then trust that this person wouldn't do it ever again?

The only issue I took with this is that even as a reader, Rhys didn't seem like the kind of person who would have ever done such a thing. Honestly, going in, I thought it'd be Derek. Lol. Just goes to show you can never really know an MC based on just chapter one😂

And in all honesty the only role Rhys played in this was to be the forever penitent husband. I can't even count how many times he says he's sorry. Literally. Takes his lashings, apologizes then keeps quiet until the next time.

The rest of the book is Derek going through the 5 stages of grief for their marriage. And then deciding at the end that it's worth taking the risk to make it work again.

Lol. Anyway.

Sucks to be them.