Plain and simple: I don’t need a man I have to drag along with me!
My name is Katherine Newell, and I live in the town of Evesham, where the Worcestershire countryside stretches along the River Avon. I’ve been with Michael for almost three years now, and this past year, we’ve shared a roof. I know his family, and he knows mine. Since spring, we’ve both started working, and it inspired us to make bold plans—talking about marriage, children, and a future that seemed so close and real. But everything crumbled one bleak day in early June when Michael’s life shattered into pieces. His mother died—suddenly, brutally. She was returning from work when she collapsed on the street from a heart attack and passed away on the way to the hospital. The blow was devastating, the pain unbearable for all of them.
I didn’t leave his side. Michael is the man I love, the one I chose to spend my life with. I stayed close, enduring his sleepless nights, wiping the tears from his cheeks, silently bearing his attempts to drown his grief in whisky, empty glass after empty glass. I held his hand as he plummeted into a void of despair, a dark pit with no light. Even when he pushed me away, shouting for 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 with him.
But the months dragged on, and Michael remained the same—broken, lost. He shut himself away within four walls, cutting himself off from the world. He avoided friends and wouldn’t speak to me for days. No matter what I suggested—going out, distracting himself, moving forward—he dismissed it, staring blankly, saying nothing. He spent whole days at home, fixated on one spot, doing nothing. He’s even taken unpaid leave, risking his job entirely. I don’t know how to pull him up from this mire. I understand what a loss it is to lose a mother, but it’s as if he died along with her. When I try to say that life continues and that we need to fight for the living, he accuses me of being heartless and cynical. Maybe he’s right, but I can’t help thinking about something else.
What if this isn’t the end of our trials? Life doesn’t spare anyone—new troubles and challenges await us. If he breaks down like a brittle twig with every misfortune, how will we cope? If I always have to be the one carrying everything on my shoulders, I simply won’t endure. And I don’t want a life like that! I need a man by my side—strong, reliable, someone with whom we can share life’s burdens equally, not someone I have to drag along like a heavy weight. I’m exhausted from being his support, his lifeline, while he sinks into his sea of tears and doesn’t even try to swim.
I’m afraid to confess all this even to my closest friends. What if they judge me, call me cold-hearted? I imagine my friends looking at me reproachfully: “His mother died, and you’re thinking about yourself!” But I’m not made of stone—I suffer, too, crying at night as I look at him, at this stranger, this lost person my Michael has become. Where is the guy who laughed with me, who planned and dreamed of our future? He’s gone, and I don’t know if he’ll ever return. I’m terrified—terrified of losing our love, terrified of staying with him like this, terrified of leaving and then regretting it.
I don’t want to leave him in his time of need, but I can no longer be his caretaker. Every day I see him wasting away, and I feel myself fading too. Work, home, his silence—everything weighs on me like a concrete slab. I dreamed of having a family and happiness, but I got this—endless melancholy and loneliness together. How do I save our love? How do I pull him out of this swamp? 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, give me 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 precipice and need some light to find my way out.
