Kylee Strutt - Fun With A Stranger - Real Wife Stories -

The Thursday it happened was unremarkable. Mark was on a business trip in Chicago, the kids were at their grandparents’ house, and I was sitting alone in our living room in yoga pants that had seen better days. I looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize the woman staring back. I saw a function, not a person.

"No names. No phones. No past. No future. Just tonight. Just fun. We drive out to the coast, watch the sunrise, and pretend we are two people who have never been hurt or tied down. What do you say?" Kylee Strutt - fun with a stranger - Real wife stories

That weekend, I booked us a last-minute cabin in the woods. No kids. No phones (well, fewer phones). We sat by a fire, and for the first time in years, Mark told me a story about his childhood that I had never heard. I saw him—the real him—under the "provider" mask. The Thursday it happened was unremarkable

Let’s call him Jake. I don’t even remember if that was his real name. He was tall, with salt-and-pepper stubble and eyes that looked like they had seen a thousand stories. He wasn’t trying to be flashy. He just ordered a bourbon, neat, and sat two stools away. I saw a function, not a person

For the first time in years, I wasn't a wife. I wasn't a mom. I wasn't an employee. I was just a woman listening to a stranger tell a story about a road trip he took in 2008.

That stranger didn’t steal my heart. He handed it back to me. He showed me that the spark wasn't dead—it was just sleeping under a pile of laundry, school forms, and exhaustion.

"You look like you’re solving a math problem in your head," he said. "Groceries, maybe."