When I was newly married, my first wife and I attended a party.
It was in my hometown, in a place where I knew almost everyone. I walked around the room and garden, chatting to random people, laughing, bantering, having a great time… and I completely forgot my wife. I forgot to introduce her to people. Forgot to include her in conversations, forgot she existed altogether, because I had my beer and I had some appetizers and I got people laughing and for about an hour or two, she became a mere afterthought. A non-entity, even.
She told me, after we had gotten home, that she had been feeling very lost and lonely at the party. That she felt that, in that moment, I had abandoned her. And I had abandoned her, she was right. Of course I apologized, and I said I was sorry and then we moved on. I did, anyway. But a little seed was planted in her head that night that never quite left her — “am I really his ride or die, his partner in crime, or am I just an accessory to be forgotten or dismissed whenever convenient?” She knew it, at that moment, and I didn’t, and we lived together in denial for several more years.
Years passed, and we both cheated on each other. We were awful, and our marriage collapsed, as it was destined to. But she told me of that night, once. Years after the fact. “That’s the night our marriage died,” she said. We stayed together another five years, had two more kids. But that’s what really killed it. Neglect. Neglect killed her enthusiasm and passion for me, which killed my enthusiasm and passion for her, which led to mutual infidelity and the end of us being us.