For over 30 years, I believed I was living in a happy marriage. Together with my husband, we endured the hardships of the 90s, raised three children, and in recent years, we enjoyed a stable, peaceful life. It seemed to me that, despite the lack of romantic gestures, our relationship was strong and built on mutual respect.
However, a few months ago, everything started to change. My husband became irritable, rude, and impatient. I tried to find an explanation—maybe health issues, maybe another woman, or maybe financial troubles? But what I heard surpassed my worst suspicions.
My husband announced that he was filing for divorce. He said that he had loved another woman all his life, but since she had married a wealthy man, he—out of sheer spite—married me. In the early years of our marriage, they continued to meet and had an affair. Then her husband took her abroad, and they lost contact, so he decided that “it would be better” to stay with me. In his eyes, I was a better wife, but I was never the one he truly loved.
Now, after so many years, that woman has passed away, and my husband suddenly realized that he had not been living his own life. He declared that he must finally do something for himself and wants a divorce. We are going to sell our apartment, and each of us will buy a separate place for a fresh start.
And me? I feel as if one sentence has destroyed my entire life. For three decades, I was convinced that I was loved. Now I know that I was just the “safe choice.” Suddenly, every moment of our life together feels like a lie.
I don’t know how to come to terms with this. Maybe it would have been easier to bear if I had known earlier. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much if the children were still young and I could focus on raising them.
Is it normal for this to hurt so much? How can I find strength when my whole life turns out to be an illusion? Maybe there are women here who have gone through something similar—how did you cope with it?
