Clear and simple: I don’t need a man I have to carry along with me!
My name is Katherine Thompson, and I live in York, nestled in the heart of North Yorkshire. I’ve been with Matthew for nearly three years, and we’ve been sharing a home for the past year. Our families know each other well. Since the spring, we’ve both started new jobs, inspiring us to dream big — marriage, children, a future that felt so close and tangible. But everything crumbled on one dark June day when Matthew’s world shattered. His mother passed away — suddenly and mercilessly. Coming back from work, she collapsed on the street, suffering a heart attack, and died en route to the hospital. The blow was devastating, the pain unbearable for all of them.
I stuck by him every step of the way. Matthew is the man I love, the person with whom I planned my future. I stayed close, sharing his sleepless nights, wiping the tears as they ran down his cheeks, silently enduring as he drowned his sorrow in whisky, one glass after the other. I held his hand as he descended into the abyss of despair, into a dark void where no light reached. Even when he pushed me away, shouting for me not to witness his weakness, I stayed. I couldn’t leave him alone in this hell. He was my everything, and I was ready to bear his pain alongside him.
But months have passed, and Matthew remains the same — broken, lost. He has shut himself away from the world within four walls. He doesn’t meet friends, and there are days he doesn’t say a word to me. Whatever I suggest — going out, getting distracted, moving on — he brushes aside, staring with vacant eyes in silence. He spends entire days at home, fixated on one spot, doing nothing. He even took unpaid leave, risking his job altogether. I have no idea how to pull him out of this mire. I understand what a loss it is — losing a mother — but it’s like he died along with her. When I try to remind him that life continues, that we must fight for those still living, he accuses me of being “unfeeling, cynical!” Maybe he’s right, but I can’t help but think of the future.
What if this isn’t the end of our trials? Life doesn’t spare us — other hardships await, new blows. If he breaks every time there’s sorrow like a dry twig, how will we cope? If I’m always to be the one who carries it all, I just can’t handle it. Nor do I want such a fate! I need a man next to me — 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 support, his lifeline while he drowns in his sea of tears and makes no attempt to swim to shore.
I’m afraid to admit this even to those closest to me. What if they judge me, call me cold, heartless? I imagine friends looking at me reproachfully: “His mother died, and you’re thinking of yourself!” But I’m not made of stone — I suffer too, I also cry at night, looking at him, at this stranger, this lost person Matthew has become. Where is the guy who laughed with me, planned our future, dreamed together? He’s gone, and I don’t know if he’ll ever return. I’m scared — scared of losing our love, of staying with him as he is, of leaving and then regretting it.
I don’t want to abandon him in his troubles, but I cannot keep being his caretaker. Every day, I see him fading away, and I feel myself fading as well. Work, home, his silence — it all weighs on me like a concrete slab. I dreamed of family, of happiness, and now have endless loneliness alongside someone else. How can I save our love? How can I pull him out of this swamp? Or perhaps 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 for myself. Please, give me advice — how can I bring him back to life or find the strength to leave if he’s not the person I loved anymore? I’m at the edge of the abyss, and I need light to find a way out.
