My husband and I have been together for 14 years. We got married when we were still in college, very young. We had nothing, we rented a room, then worked. Our relatives couldn’t help us, so we started from scratch.
My husband was very serious and goal-oriented, so his career skyrocketed. I supported him in everything, was there for him in difficult moments, put up with the fact that he was hardly ever home and hoped that this was only temporary. That he would make some progress and be with his family more often.
What I dreamed about the most was having children. We thought about it when we had just started working, took out a mortgage, an inexpensive car. For several years nothing came out, then miscarriages one after another, terrible despair, doctors, prayers, and finally, I got pregnant. I was so afraid, so afraid for the little creature inside me, but even then a miracle did not happen. My baby was very weak and died a month after the birth. I almost lost my mind. I didn’t want him to be buried, I begged him to keep him. We had already bought a crib, a stroller, equipped a nursery, came up with a name. The doctors told me that I couldn’t have any more children, that it was my last attempt.
The whole thing was like it wasn’t with me. I didn’t know what to do next. I went to church more often, prayed and cried for a long time, hardly slept or ate. My husband became blacker than a cloud and came home even less often. I suspected him of infidelity, I even saw explicit messages on his phone, and acquaintances whispered behind his back, but I did not care about what was going on around me. I was in my own grief, in my own nightmare. I could see that my husband was hurting too, he was also dreaming about having a baby, and we talked a lot about what it would be like. How we would live, raise, play, walk together and then it all stopped making sense. I didn’t have the energy to talk to him, to talk about my feelings, to talk at all. I felt like I had died with my baby. I went to work like a robot. I didn’t talk to anyone, I avoided everyone. I immersed myself headfirst in cases, applications, and blueprints. It calmed me down, helped distract me from hard thoughts.
That is how my husband and I lived together for three more years. The house became empty, I stopped cooking, trying to keep things cozy. We both almost stopped going to the apartment. We almost didn’t communicate, we slept in separate rooms. We didn’t try to discuss it, we just lived like strangers. He might not come home at night, and if at first I lost it, worried and called, later it became the norm.
I don’t know what would have happened or how we would have lived if I hadn’t met an old acquaintance at work. We had a mutual sympathy before, but I met my husband and got married. And now old feelings have flared up again. We see each other, flirt, joke with each other. He invites me to the movies, to a restaurant, to night out. I feel like a student again. In love and free. We’re both almost 40. He has a wife, two children. He wants to talk to his wife and ask for a divorce. He says it’s serious and he wants to make me happy. But I talk him out of it. I do not want their family to disintegrate, although he assures me that he and his wife have both grown cold to each other long ago.
I, on the other hand, just don’t believe that I can be happy again. Something is broken in me. And it can not be fixed. It’s like I exist, but I do not live. I enjoy life, but I hardly feel it. It’s like a dream. I think I’ll only make another unhappy man out of him.
And my husband, why doesn’t he divorce? We’ve never talked about it. The mortgage is long paid off, we both have our own lives, but I can’t say I don’t love him. I’m still very attached to my husband. Warm memories of us, of our dreams, of what we had. But also the resentment inside for myself, for the unlived pain, for the fact that he left without support, one-on-one with the trouble.
I do not know what to do and how to live further. I regret that I even began this novel. I should have thought with my head. Too wanted to smile again, again to love and be loved. But all the same, it all comes out in vain.
