He Was Happy. I Was Planning My Exit

It’s funny how often we see a relationship completely differently from our partner. I went quiet. So did he. But he thought I had calmed down, stopped “nagging”. In reality, I had stopped caring. He was content. I was already packing my suitcase in my head. I knew it was over. I made the decision to leave long before I actually walked away.

They say women leave over time. They analyse, shout, cry, fight. As long as they’re loud, it means they still care. When they go silent, that’s when it’s really over. And men? Men don’t reflect. They don’t think deeply. Unless it’s about your exes, but never about your feelings. They don’t care. They don’t want trouble. And when you get too loud, they find someone “less difficult”. Then someone else. And someone else again. Until they end up posting sad little comments online about the tragedy of lonely men.

Are we, as women, meant to feel sorry for them? Sure. I can feel sorry for their lack of emotional intelligence. Deeply sorry. My husband is the perfect example of how much damage that causes. If he had even a sliver of it, he would have realised, sooner or later, that my silence was indifference. That I no longer cared about saving something that had already died. How many times can you try to revive a corpse?

My tears were “too much” for him. In fact, everything I did differently from him was “too much”. Looking back now, there’s only one clear truth. He was the one who was too much. Too stubborn, too ignorant, too foolish. Hear that, Mark? You were, and still are, absurdly stupid. But you’re also a master of gaslighting. For eight years, I believed the version of events you spoon-fed me every single day. That it was all my fault.

It must be such a convenient way to live. No guilt, no shame, no accountability. Where do men learn that? At home? In the womb? Even before they’re born? And then, one day, they finally cry. But always in private. Because it’s shameful to admit that loneliness eats away at them.

But somehow, it’s not shameful to disrespect your woman. To ignore her needs. To convince her it’s her fault the relationship feels like a worn-out charity shop scarf. Stretched thin, washed too many times, shapeless and sad.

Thanks for letting me get this out, Empress.