Its not about the fork.

When do you throw the towel in? When do you say 'enough'? When do you cut the cord and think - I am unhappy more than I am happy - it is time to move on. You see that husband has turned his fork the wrong way round. It gleams and winks at you on the empty plate and you look at it - you can't take your fucking eyes off it and you ask him to turn it the right way - he has finished eating, table manners dictates this. You want to tear him apart. You feel rage pulsate in your head and start to crawl down your arms towards your fingers and down to your toes. You feel prickly heat behind your ears.It isn't really about his social eating skills - it isn't anything to do with the sad little fork next to the grubby knife. It is all your months of frustration and hurt, all that anger that has drip drip dripped and collected to form an almighty dam that is just about to burst.

Marriage is work. I know that. But this hard? When the tears fall more days than they don't. When you start noticing how other couples behave and you think - we don't do that? When you speak to each other like you are dirt on the ground and it has become so normal to be this way that you don't raise an eyebrow. When you go to a lonely bed every night of the week. When you miss someone desiring you. When you love a child but have forgotten to love each other. When his career means more than time together. When you feel like you are holding it all together with the skin of your teeth and at any moment you could just drop that basket and bceome a basket-case. When you resent everything they do and even more everything they don't. When you eye wanders. When the loneliness eats at you at night and your stomach churns. When you remember the person you once were and you miss her. When you have gone round so many times in the same circles that you feel like a fish in a bowl. When you stop laughing.

Is that when you throw in the towel?