We’ve gotten to a point in our marriage where everything is at a standstill. After eleven years of marriage and two kids, I feel like I’ve seen everything there’s to see when it comes to this marriage.
For eleven years, he had been doing the same thing. Stingy to the core. Even more stingy with words. He won’t praise you, encourage you or compliment you. You hear his voice only when there’s something wrong and to him, something is always wrong.
My kids are my friends. They are the ones who keep me grounded. Their voice, their cries, their worries are everything to me. They live their lives like they don’t have a father because he always brushes them off. When they cry, he screams at them. When they go to him he redirects them to me. His favourite phrase; “Go to mummy.” So the kids know me and not him.
What pushed me to share my story here is what happened not long ago. I travelled for a funeral. I left home on Friday and returned on Sunday night. The first time in our eleven years together that I’ve been away for this long. When I got to the village I called him. In the evening I called to check up on him. On Saturday, he missed my call but I got busy along the way so I put my phone somewhere.
In the evening I ran to my phone thinking I’d missed plenty of calls from him. Nil. I mean zero calls from him. He didn’t even respond to the one he missed.
On Sunday when I set off, I didn’t call him. I went to my parents first for the kids and stayed for a while, hoping he would call and ask what was keeping me late. He didn’t. I got home at 10pm, he wasn’t home. He came a few minutes later and pretended it was life as usual.
I don’t feel anything for him at this point. He goes out and comes in late but it doesn’t bother me. I’ve learned not to care because he doesn’t care.
I was with my parents and saw how they were lively after all these years of marriage. They play like kids. They fight like they don’t know each other. They say their sorry and go back to normal again. Why is mine different? No, it wasn’t like that from the beginning and I can’t pinpoint where it changed. It degraded gradually until it got to this point.
Thank you for reading this and thank you for whatever you’ll say. If you comment on this, it means you care for me than my husband though you don’t know me. Even if you insult me, you care. At least you read and paid attention to understand my story. My husband won’t do that even if I trumpet it in his ears. Maybe he’s out of it but can’t say. I’m out of it too because I don’t care. I might say it. At the right time.
