When My Husband Moved Out, Love Hopped In
He was short, big-eared and hairy. But during my divorce, my rabbit was Mr. Right.

September 27. 2018 · 9 minute read

At midnight, I’m startled awake; Marty is licking my chin. He’s in his usual position — butt on a towel, front legs on my upper chest, head resting on my neck. In this bed, my husband used to wake me with his snoring. Now Marty wakes me with his grooming.

I adopted Marty, a spotted Rex breed rabbit, many years ago as a companion to my house rabbit Ruby, a feisty grey dwarf mix. My husband and I, then newlyweds, laughed at their opposite personalities: Ruby, the female, clearly wore the furry pants in the family, jumping on the sofa, dominance-mounting Marty, and sometimes nipping me on the ass to move faster as I crouched to fill their food dish in the mornings. In contrast, Marty was gentle and calm, the one to melt in your hug, soak up head rubs, and was a most agreeable bed warmer and naptime companion.

Ruby and Marty were bondmates for many years until Ruby unexpectedly died. Marty adjusted well to his newfound bachelorhood; then 10 years old, he was becoming a “senior gentleman,” as Dr. Dan, his vet, had so tactfully put it, and less able to tolerate Ruby’s boundless energy.

Several months after Marty lost his girlfriend, I lost my job and my husband. For a decade, I’d spent my days slogging through corporate politics and my evenings with my husband. But after layoffs claimed my job and dysfunction, my marriage, I found myself suddenly alone in a big house without the roles that had defined me for years.

My evenings in particular were oddly silent, void of the grating but familiar shouting, gunfire and epic music of my husband’s television shows and action movies. Fighting loneliness, I fell into a routine I called, “Bed, book, and bunny” — I’d read myself to sleep with Marty resting peacefully at my side or on my chest. Marty would usually wake me an hour or two later, grooming me, and I’d return him to his bachelor pad — a large pen in my office — so he could have food, water and his litter box and I could have uninterrupted sleep the rest of the night.

As the months passed, Marty and I visited Dr. Dan more often, for senior gentleman maladies like cataracts, arthritis, fur loss (old men lose hair, you know), and flareups of head tilt — a lasting effect of an illness earlier in his life. During one visit, I tentatively asked about Marty’s new behavior — the bedtime grooming. Wedging himself between my book and my face, Marty would often prop himself up, front paws on my chest, determined to lick any part of my face he could reach — chin, nose, neck — happily grunting the whole time. Then he’d fall asleep on me, grinding his teeth in contentment. I thought maybe he needed salt in his diet, or loved the taste of my moisturizer.

“Has he been peeing on you, too?” Dr. Dan asked, suddenly serious.

“Um…yes,” I said, relieved that he hadn’t laughed at me. “Actually, all of a sudden he has been.”

“He’s marking you,” Dr. Dan said. “He’s telling you that you’re his. You belong to him.”

When I mentioned that it had only started after my husband moved out, Dr. Dan replied with a thoughtful smile, “They’re very intuitive.”

So, with our respective partners both gone, little four-pound Marty had hopped into what he apparently saw as his new role — my significant other.

As the months passed, I reluctantly adapted to living alone in the house I’d built and shared with my husband — “the rot house,” we’d joked, where we’d grow old and rot together. In every room, memories taunted like restless ghosts. When I would leave, I heard my husband’s long-ago goodbyes whispering from the shadows. When I returned, his greetings echoed in the corners. But the steely silence that always followed affirmed the truth — he was gone.

But Marty stayed, a comforting constant when I departed and returned. He didn’t question where I’d been, accuse me of spending too much time with friends, or care if I left the lights on. When I petted him goodbye, he’d lick my hand. When I was home, he’d shuffle around on the living room rug. Though once, as a spry young bunny, he’d gracefully leaped, he now slowly walk-hopped as the cataracts blurred his vision and the arthritis slowed his gait. But in the evenings, we snuggled as we always had; he didn’t need his eyes or legs for that.

Many nights, we’d binge-watch episodes of the original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy series. Inspired by the Fab Five, I started to imagine my own life makeover. Unlike past partners, Marty never complained about my choice of shows, nor did he mind my singing. One night, I sang him every love song whose lyrics I could remember. Marty snuggled on my chest, eyes half-closed, kindly tolerating my versions of Lou Rawls’ “You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine” and Aretha Franklin’s “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman,” but I think his favorite was “Thank You” by Dido, especially the part that goes: “Oh, just to be with you is having the best day of my life.”

His bunny shoulders might have been too small to cry on, but his comfort was as big as the bear hugs my husband had once given me.

Many friends whom I’d known for years with my spouse disappeared after we separated. Worse, some who reached out only wanted to gather gossip, not offer support. After a particularly bad “friend” day, I decided to indulge in an evening of feeling miserable — I figured I’d wallow completely in my sorrows with a big glass of wine and get it all out of my system. Marty was happy to help. He sat on the kitchen table on a towel while I held him and sipped, sobbed, and dabbed my eyes with the soft tips of his ears. Marty squinted his furry eyelids and listened intently to my human problems — how sad I was at my marriage ending, how hard I’d tried to save it, and how overwhelmed I felt at rebuilding my life on my own. He snuggled into my face and, with his tiny tongue, licked my tears as they rolled down my cheeks, making me laugh. His bunny shoulders might have been too small to cry on, but his comfort was as big as the bear hugs my husband had once given me. I never finished the wine.

About a year after Marty and I became an item, his health took a downward turn. While I was away for a week visiting family, he had a major relapse of head tilt. His responsible bunny sitter had called me, started him on a course of medication and was confident he would recover just fine, but I was frantic when I returned to pick him up. His little neck was twisted so badly he looked like a bird with its head tucked under its wing. Over the years I’d often wondered if, with his walnut-sized brain, Marty really recognized me. That day, I know he did. At the sound of my voice, he grunted loudly, calling me, and when I took him in my arms, his body relaxed as if to say, “Thank God you’re here!” He lay in my lap and licked my hands frantically for the hour-long drive home, and only relaxed when I put him down on the bed, talked to him, and held him until he fell asleep.

With a 30-day regimen of more medications from Dr. Dan and round-the-clock mother hen-ing from me, Marty improved, but not fully; he had frequent spells of vertigo, and though he’d stopped peeing on me, he lost his once-perfect litterbox habits and now peed — and poo-ed — everywhere else. It was dementia, Dr. Dan said — common in animals his age. I modified a soft-sided cat bed so Marty and I could still snuggle at night, the bed’s sides holding him upright and its bottom protecting me from accidents. When I wouldn’t allow him to lie right on me as he used to, Marty modified his bunny advances, determined to have his way with me no matter what. Keeping his butt end in the bed, he would strategically creep his front paws slowly forward, flexible bunny spine stretching, until his front end was on me, as usual.

As the weeks wore on, worries about my impending divorce hindered my sleep. One morning, plagued with pre-sunrise insomnia, I brought Marty — my zero-side-effect sleep aid — to bed. I awoke two hours later to the sound of tiny snoring near my ear; as I slept, he had crept his entire front end out of the cat bed and onto me. His little head lay on the pillow alongside mine, delicate bunny arm outstretched toward my neck in a hug. In sickness and in health, my “husbun” was determined to sleep next to me as he always had.

Marty is now 12 — in human years that’s, well, pretty damn old. With his entire lifespan condensed into little more than a human decade, at some point he and I must have been the same age. But now he’s surpassed me, and it’s him — not my husband — I’ve watched grow old. His fur is more wispy than plushy now — “old fur,” as my cat-savvy friend says. And his cloudy eyes resemble those of Master Po, the wise old Buddhist monk from the Kung Fu television series. He sleeps a lot, often falling asleep on the edge of his water bowl while drinking, and needs help grooming his fur and cleaning his ears. Like many with older spouses, I’ve became a caretaker.

Daily, I wipe him, clean his accidents, and give thanks to the pet gods that he craps like a rabbit and not a Great Dane. Weekly, he gets a butt bath and a blow-dry. Sometimes, the sound of running water spooks him — the dementia, I guess — and I hold him, stroke his old fur, and soothe him until his Master Po eyes are calm again. He’s more work than he used to be, but it’s never a burden — after all, he’s not heavy, he’s my bunny.

My relationship with Marty has lasted longer than my marriage, my jobs, and many of my friendships.

When I bathe him, I marvel at the trust with which Marty flops his body in my arms as I lift him and turn him this way and that. As I know from my marriage, trust like that builds — or erodes — gradually, imperceptibly, through hundreds of subtle interactions over the years, each one either quietly feeding or killing the soul, bit by tiny bit. It wasn’t the plan, but my relationship with Marty has lasted longer than my marriage, my jobs, and many of my friendships. As I look at 50, I wonder if I’ll make it to Marty’s old age and, if I do, I’ll be as loved.

Recently I decided to open up our relationship, and Marty’s fine with it. A new human guy now joins us sometimes for nighttime TV watching, the three of us snuggled together on the bed, a cozy threesome. Marty grooms us both. The other night we watched an episode of the new Queer Eye. As the theme song says, things keep getting better.

But Marty and I have kept a few routines to ourselves, just the two of us. Each morning when I wake, I rise, shuffle to his pen, and check his little chest as he sleeps. When I see it rising and falling I think, Yes…we’ll be together another day. “Good morning, sweetheart,” I say, and gently stroke his semi-bald head. He twists his velvety ears toward my voice and licks my hand. Unlike my marriage, my bond with Marty will last until death. One day, I know, it will end. But not today.

. . .

Note: Six months after I finalized this essay, Marty’s mobility declined to the point where he could no longer stand or feed himself. Dr. Dan and I assisted Marty over the Rainbow Bridge. Marty was a special partner and the sweetest soul to the very end, licking the tears from my face as we took our final ride to the vet.