Ill recount a tale that has lingered in my heart for years, one I usually keep to myself. Perhaps Ive convinced myself that others endure worse, yet today I finally admit out loud that I am not happyand that I have felt unhappy for as long as I can remember.
Thirty years ago I married Laurent, not out of love but because it seemed the right choice. My parents kept insisting he was stable, that with him I would never lack anything, so I followed their advice.
Back then, love didnt appear essential; security came first. How wrong I was.
From the start, Laurent never hesitated to embarrass me publicly.
She cant even fry an egg! he would joke in front of his friends, and they all burst out laughing.
In bed shes like a tree trunk, hed sneer, unaware that I lowered my gaze in shame beside him.
I stayed silent. I endured. I tried to prove I deserved his affection, cooking dinner, trying to be gentle and attentive, yet each effort was met with coldness and contempt.
Then our children arrived, and I told myself I would hold on for their sake.
When our sons grew up and left home, Laurent made no effort to hide the fact that he no longer needed me. He had a separate room built in the house where he now lives alone. Neighbours and friends still assumed we were an ideal familynothing seemed to have changed on the surface. We shared the same roof and the same kitchen.
No one realized even the refrigerator was split. On his containers he wrote large letters L.L. so I wouldnt accidentally touch his food. I made do with what I could affordplain porridge, potatoes, occasional bean soup. I could only enter the kitchen when he wasnt there; it was his kingdom, his territory. In the mornings and at lunch I ate in my bedroom, and if I happened to cross his path, his irritated stare struck me like a bolt. He would sit down with his fine sausages, cheeses, a bottle of wine, and begin his meal without ever offering me a bite. I felt like a ghost in that house.
From time to time we shopped together, each buying only what we intended to consume. Water, electricity, and phone bills were split down to the cent. Yet to outsiders we were still a couple. Even our children, who rarely visited, were unaware of the reality. And I kept enduring, bearing his heavy gaze, his scorn, his icy silence.
The worst part was his weekends. Those days turned our home into a battlefield.
Youre nothing. He roamed the house as if every square inch belonged to him. If I accidentally left something on his side of the table, it sparked a confrontation. He would grind his teeth all day, then explode over the slightest provocation.
Youre a cow! he would yell straight at my face.
As simpleminded and narrow as a stone on the road!
For years I clenched my fists, biting my tongue. Then one day something snapped inside me. He started shouting againI cant even recall why. Sitting opposite him, I watched him rant, his face twisted with anger. In that instant I felt the urge to grab a vase and hurl it at his head, to make him feel even a fraction of the pain Id carried for years. I didnt. I simply rose and retreated to my bedroom. I didnt shout back, no tears fell. Because I knew that man meant nothing to me any longer.
I still tremble, and living this way terrifies me even more. I remain under the same roof as him, unsure whether Ill ever find the strength to leave. Im scared.
Even more, I fear dying here, never having known true happiness. I pray for just one thingthat my sons never walk the same path, that they find people who love, value, and respect them.
As for me for now, I am merely surviving.
The Absence of Happiness: Enduring His Insults for the Sake of the Children
