Ill share a tale that has weighed on my heart for years, one I often kept to myself. Perhaps I falsely assume others suffer more, yet today I finally admit aloud that I am not happyindeed, I have felt unhappy all my life.
Thirty years ago I married Laurent. It wasnt love that drove me, but the belief that it was the right choice. My parents kept telling me he was stable, that with him I would never lack anything. I listened to them and went ahead.
Back then I thought love was optional; security came first. How wrong I was.
Humiliations became routine
From the start Laurent didnt shy away from embarrassing me in front of others.
She cant even fry an egg! hed joke to his friends around the table, and they all burst out laughing.
In bed shes as stiff as a log, hed snarl publicly, oblivious to the shame that made me look down beside him.
I stayed quiet. I endured.
I tried to prove I deserved his affection: I cooked dinner, I made an effort to be gentle and attentive. Yet every attempt was met with coldness and contempt.
Then our children arrived.
I told myself I would hold onfor their sake.
Living under one roof, yet in separate worlds
When our sons grew up and left home, Laurent didnt even bother 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 thought we were the pictureperfect familynothing seemed to have changed outwardly. We shared the same roof, the same kitchen space.
No one knew that even the refrigerator was split.
On his containers he wrote in large letters L.L. so I wouldnt touch his food, even by accident.
I made do with what I could affordplain porridge, potatoes, occasional bean soup.
I could only enter the kitchen when he was absent. That space was his kingdom, his territory. In the mornings and at lunch I had to eat in my bedroom, and if I happened to cross his path, his irritated stare would sting me.
He would sit down with fine sausages, assorted cheeses, a bottle of wine, and begin his meal without ever offering me a bite.
I felt like a ghost in my own house.
Indifference tinged with hatred
Occasionally wed go to the supermarket together, each buying only what we intended to consume.
Water, electricity, and phone bills were split down to the cent.
To outsiders we still appeared a couple. Even our children, who rarely visited, had no clue about the reality.
And I kept tolerating it.
I bore his heavy gaze, his scorn, his icy silence.
The worst part, however, were the weekends.
Those days turned the house into a battlefield.
Youre nothing
He roamed the home as if every square inch belonged to him. If I accidentally left something on his side of the table, it sparked a confrontation.
He grumbled all day, then exploded over the smallest thing.
Youre a cow! he shouted at my face.
As simpleminded and stubborn as a stone on the roadside!
I clenched my fists for years, biting back my words.
Then something finally cracked inside me.
He began yelling again, and I cant even recall why.
Sitting opposite him, I watched him rant, his face twisted with fury.
In that instant I wanted to grab a vase and hurl it at him, to make him feel the pain that had lived inside me for so long.
But I didnt.
I simply rose and retreated to my room.
I didnt shout back. No tears fell.
Because I knew that man meant nothing to me anymore.
I tremble, yet living like this frightens me even more
Im still here, still under the same roof as that man.
I dont know if Ill ever find the strength to leave.
Im scared.
Even more frightening is the thought of dying here, never having known true happiness.
I pray for just one thingthat my sons never walk the same path. That they live with people who love, value, and respect them.
And me
For now, Im merely surviving.
