The absent happiness: he insulted me, I endured for the children
I want to share a story that has weighed on my heart for a long time, yet I usually keep it to myself. Perhaps I mistakenly think others suffer more. Still, today I finally admit out loud that I am not happy, and that I have always felt unhappy.
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. So 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 early on, Laurent never hesitated to embarrass me in public.
She cant even fry 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 mock openly, ignoring the shame that made me lower my eyes beside him.
I stayed silent. I put up with it.
I tried to prove I deserved his affection. I cooked dinner, I strained to be gentle and considerate. Yet each time I received only coldness and contempt.
Then our children arrived.
I told myself: for their sake, I will endure.
Under the same roof, living in separate worlds
When our sons grew up and left home, Laurent didnt even bother to hide that he no longer needed me. He had a separate room built in the house, where he now lives alone. Neighbors and friends assumed we were an ideal familynothing seemed to have changed on the surface. We shared the same roof, the same kitchen space.
No one knew that even our fridge was divided.
On his containers he wrote in large letters L.L. so I wouldnt touch his provisions, even by accident.
I made do with what I could affordplain porridge, potatoes, occasionally a bean soup.
I could only enter the kitchen when he was absent. It was his kingdom, his territory. In the mornings and at noon I had to eat in my bedroom, and if I happened to cross his path, his irritated stare struck me like a bolt.
He would sit at the table with 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.
Indifference laced with hatred
Occasionally we would shop together, each buying only what we intended to consume. Water, electricity, and phone bills were split down to the cent.
To outsiders we remained a couple. Even our children, who seldom visited, never suspected the reality.
And I kept enduring.
I tolerated his heavy gaze, his contempt, his icy silence.
But the worst were the weekends.
Those days the house turned 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 creaked all day, then exploded over trivial matters.
Youre a cow! he shouted at my face.
As simpleminded and stubborn as a stone on the roadside!
I clenched my fists for a long time, biting my tongue for years.
One day something finally snapped inside me.
He started ranting again, though I cant even recall why.
Sitting across from him, I watched him gasp, his face twisted with anger.
In that moment I wanted to grab a vase and hurl it at his head, to make him feel the pain that had lived inside me for so long.
But I didnt.
I simply stood up and withdrew to my bedroom.
I didnt shout back. No tears fell.
Because I knew: that man meant nothing to me any longer.
I tremble, yet living like this scares me even more
Im still here, still under the same roof as that man.
I dont know if I will ever find the strength to leave.
Im afraid.
More than anything, I fear dying here without ever having known 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.
And me
For now, I am merely surviving.
The Absence of Happiness: Enduring His Insults for the Sake of the Children
