Absent happiness: he insulted me, I endured for the children
Ill share a story that has weighed on my heart for years, one I usually keep to myself. Perhaps I mistakenly think others suffer more, but today I finally admit aloud that Im not happyand that Ive 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 saying he was stable, that with him I would never lack anything. I followed their advice.
Back then I believed love wasnt essential; stability came first. What a mistake that turned out to be.
Humiliations became routine
From the start Laurent never hesitated to embarrass me in public.
She cant even boil an egg! he would joke in front of his friends at the table, and everyone would burst out laughing.
In bed shes like a tree trunk, hed quip with everyone watching, ignoring the shame that made me lower my eyes beside him.
I stayed silent. I bore it.
I tried to prove I deserved his love: I cooked dinner, I tried to be gentle and attentive. Each time I was met only with coldness and contempt.
Then our children arrived. I told myself I would hold onfor them.
Under the same roof, in different 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 thought we were an ideal familynothing seemed to have changed on the surface. We shared the same roof and the same kitchen space.
No one knew that even our refrigerator was split. On his containers he wrote in big 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 out. That was his kingdom, his territory. In the mornings and at noon I ate in my bedroom, and if I happened to cross his path, his annoyed stare struck me like a bolt.
He would sit down with fine sausages, cheeses, a bottle of wine, and start his meal without ever offering me a bite. I felt like a ghost in that house.
Indifference laced with hatred
Occasionally we shopped together, each buying only what we intended to consume. Water, electricity and phone bills were split down to the cent.
To outsiders we were still a couple. Even our children, who rarely visited, had no idea of the reality. And I kept enduring. I tolerated his heavy stare, his contempt, his icy silence.
The worst part were the weekends. Those days the house turned into a battlefield.
Youre nothing
He roamed the house as if every square centimetre belonged to him. If I accidentally left something on his side of the table, it sparked a confrontation. He would grind all day, then explode over the slightest thing.
Youre a cow! he would shout in my face.
As simpleminded and narrow as a stone on the roadside!
I clenched my fists for years, biting my tongue.
Then one day something snapped inside me. He started shouting againI dont even remember why. Sitting across from him, I watched him roar, his face twisted with anger.
In that instant I wanted to grab a vase and hurl it at his head, to make him feel the pain that had lived in me for so long. I didnt. I simply stood up and fled to my bedroom. I didnt scream back. No tears fell. Because I knew that man meant nothing to me any more.
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.
More than anything, I fear dying here without ever knowing true happiness. I pray for only one thingthat my sons never walk the same path. That they live with people who love, value, and respect them.
As for me for now, I am merely surviving.
The Missing Happiness: He Insulted Me, I Endured It for the Children
