Clear and simple: I don’t need a man I have to drag along!
My name is Catherine Bennett, and I live in Kendal, nestled in the county of Cumbria. Tom and I have been together for almost three years, and over the past year, we have shared a home. I know his family, and he knows mine. With the arrival of spring, we both started working, which inspired us to dream big: we talked about marriage, children, and a future that seemed so close and real. Then, it all collapsed in one dark day in early June when Tom’s life fell to pieces. His mother passed away — suddenly and mercilessly. She was returning from work, collapsed in the street from a heart attack, and never made it to the hospital. The blow was devastating, the grief unbearable for them all.
I never left his side. Tom is the man I love, the one I chose to spend my life with. I stayed close, sharing his sleepless nights, wiping the tears that streaked down his cheeks, silently enduring as he drowned his sorrow in drinks, emptying glass after glass. I held his hand as he spiraled into despair, into a dark abyss with no light. Even when he pushed me away, shouting at me not to witness his weakness, I remained. I couldn’t leave him alone in this hell. He was everything to me, and I was ready to bear his pain alongside him.
But the months have passed, and Tom remains unchanged — broken and lost. He’s withdrawn within four walls, cutting himself off from the world. He won’t meet with friends, spends days without speaking a word to me. Whatever I suggest — going out, getting distracted, moving forward — he dismisses, staring with empty eyes, saying nothing. He spends entire days at home, staring at one spot, doing nothing. He even took unpaid leave, risking losing his job forever. I don’t know how to pull him out of this quagmire. I understand what a loss it is to lose a mother, but it’s as if he died alongside her. When I try to say that life goes on, that we must keep fighting for the living, he retorts, “You’re heartless, cynical!” Maybe he’s right, but I can’t stop thinking about something else.
What if this isn’t the end of our trials? Life doesn’t spare anyone — ahead lies new troubles, new blows. If he collapses like a dry twig with every sorrow, how will we manage? If I have to be the one carrying everything all the time, I simply won’t be able to endure. And I don’t want such a destiny! I need a man by my side — strong, reliable, someone with whom we share burdens equally, not someone I have to drag along like a heavy load. I’m tired of being his anchor, his lifeline while he sinks into his sea of tears without trying to swim.
I’m afraid to confess this even to my closest friends. What if they judge me, calling me cold and heartless? I imagine the reproachful looks of my friends: “His mother died, and you’re thinking about yourself!” But I’m not made of stone — I suffer too, I cry at night looking at him, at this stranger he’s become. Where’s the guy who laughed with me, who made plans, who dreamed of our future? He’s gone, and I don’t know if he’ll ever return. I’m scared — scared to lose our love, scared to stay with him as he is, scared to leave and then regret it.
I don’t want to abandon him in his misery, but I can’t continue being his caregiver. Every day I see him fading, and I feel myself fading too. Work, home, his silence — it all weighs on me like a concrete slab. I dreamed of a family, of happiness, and instead got this — endless melancholy and loneliness together. How do I save our love? How do I pull him out of this bog? Or maybe it’s time to save myself? I don’t know what to do. My heart is torn between pity for him and the desire to live my own life. Please, I’m asking for your advice — how do I bring him back to life or find the strength to leave if he’s no longer the man I loved? I’m on the edge of a cliff, and I need light to find my way out.
