When Happiness Is Absent: He Belittled Me, and I Endured for the Children
A Life in a Cage You Can’t Escape
For years, I kept this pain inside. I thought my story wasn’t significant, that many had it worse. But today I’m finally ready to say it out loud – I am unhappy and always have been.
Thirty years ago, I married Victor. Not for love, but because it was the “right thing to do.” My parents insisted he was dependable, that he would provide a stable life. I listened to them.
I believed that love wasn’t the most important thing. Stability was.
How wrong I was.
Humiliations Became Normal
Even when we were young, Victor didn’t hesitate to belittle me in front of others.
“She can’t even boil an egg!” he would joke with friends at the table while they laughed.
“In bed, she’s as engaging as a log,” he would quip in company, ignoring my embarrassment as I looked down to hide my shame.
I stayed silent. I endured.
I tried to prove I was worthy of love. I cooked dinners, aimed to be tender and caring. But each time, I was met with only indifference and disdain.
Then the children were born.
I told myself: I would endure everything for their sake.
Living Under One Roof, Yet Worlds Apart
When our sons grew up and left, Victor didn’t even try to hide that I was no longer needed.
He added a separate room to the house where he lived alone. Neighbors and friends thought we had the perfect family – outwardly, nothing seemed different. We lived in the same house, ate in the same kitchen.
But no one realized even the fridge was divided between us.
On his containers, he wrote “V.V.” in large letters so I wouldn’t accidentally touch his food.
I ate what I could afford – simple porridge, potatoes, sometimes lentil soup.
I could only be in the kitchen when he wasn’t there. It was his “kingdom,” his domain. In the mornings and afternoons, I ate in my room, and if I ended up in his vicinity, his irritated glares would cut through me.
He would sit at the table, lay out expensive sausages, cheese, a bottle of gin, and ostentatiously start his meal, never offering me a morsel.
I felt like a ghost in that house.
Indifference Laced with Hatred
Sometimes, we went shopping together. And each of us would only buy what we intended to eat ourselves.
We divided bills for water, electricity, and phone – to the last penny.
Yet to the outside world, we were still a “couple.” Even our children, who now seldom visited, didn’t realize how bad it had become.
And I continued to endure.
I endured his heavy stares, his scorn, his cold silence.
But the worst were his weekends.
Those days, the house turned into a battleground.
“You’re Nothing and Nobody”
He roamed around, acting like he owned every inch. If I mistakenly left something on his side of the table, it sparked an argument.
He would grumble all day and then explode over the smallest thing.
“You’re a cow!” he would sneer at me.
“You’re as plain and dumb as a rock on the road!”
For years, I held it in. Years of clenched fists and silence.
But one day, something snapped inside me.
He started another tirade. I can’t even remember what set him off.
I sat across from him, watching him yell, his face flushed with anger.
I felt an urge to grab a vase and throw it at his head, hoping he’d feel, even for a moment, the pain I’d suffered all these years.
But I didn’t.
I simply stood up and walked to my room.
I didn’t shout back. I didn’t cry.
Because I knew: this person meant nothing to me anymore.
I’m Afraid, Yet More Afraid to Keep Living Like This
I’m still here. Still under the same roof with this man.
I don’t know if I’ll ever have the strength to leave.
I’m scared.
But I’m even more terrified that I’ll die in this house, never knowing true happiness.
I pray for just one thing – that my sons never repeat my fate. That they live with those who love, cherish, and respect them.
And me…
For now, I simply exist.
