My husband never cheated on me, but years ago, he stopped being my husband.
Seventeen years togetherI remember how Harry and I met as young things in London. We worked, we went out for Sunday walks in Hyde Park, we dreamt about the future over endless cups of tea. At first, he was thoughtful and upbeat, easy with his laughter and gentle with my heart. Not perfect, but present. Then came marriage, responsibilities, the job at the post office, the terraced house in Reading, electricity bills and weekly shops at Sainsburys. Everything began shifting, and I didnt notice quite when the world tipped sideways.
There was no real betrayal. No mysterious lipstick on a collar or secret messages from a woman named out of thin air. Instead, one morning I simply realised he wasnt looking at me with any of the old spark. Our conversations became reduced to the dry requirements of life: what shall we get for dinner, did you pay the water bill, when does the train leave? We stopped asking how are you? as though it mattered. When I shared a story, he might nod, eyes glued to his phone or the muted television. And when I stayed silent, he never asked why.
Bit by bit, the closeness faded away, as if swept along the Thames. At first I blamed work stress. Then exhaustion. Then the slow poison of routine. Weeks would slip by without so much as a touch. We slept side by side in our bed, but always at the far edges, like islands in the Channel. I reached out, tried to draw him in, planned things to revive the magic. But Harry was always too tired, busy with paperwork, or would just mutter, Lets talk tomorrow.
That tomorrow never came.
Eventually, I understood: he was no longer my husband, but merely my flatmate. We split expenses, chores, family obligations. At the vicars annual garden party, he looked every inch the perfect husbandcalm, industrious, ever-polite. No one would guess what went on behind our red-brick walls, where silence hummed louder than words, and warmth was nothing but a flicker from an old gas fire. No one saw the emotional vacancy filling all the rooms.
I tried to reach him time and again. I told him I was lonely, that I missed him, that I needed more than this polite cohabitation. He was never angry. Never raised his voice. Just answered in quick, clipped phrases:
Dont make a fuss.
Thats just a long marriage for you.
Were alright, arent we?
That was what muddled me the most. No roaring rows to justify leaving. No affairs. But no love either. I felt like a ghost in my very own story.
The years drifted past like dream-soaked mornings. I stopped insisting. Stopped making an effort. My secrets and stories curled up quietly inside me. I learned not to expect anything. To drift along as though it all meant nothing. Sometimes, I wondered if I was too demandingwas wanting more just wishful thinking?
Today, I finally seenot every abandonment comes with suitcases and slammed doors. Some departures are silent as fog over the Downs, and nobody but you can hear the hinge as it creaks.
