The Best Gift He Gave Me Was Leaving

When you marry someone, you don’t think of an end other than “til death do you part.” You see forever, you see the one, you see the both of you growing together, having kids, buying a house, traveling the world, and growing old. For me, that was not how it worked out. For me, my husband did not want forever, he just wanted for now.

It was two years, two months, and 10 days after our wedding that my husband told me “I am not in love with you anymore.” Those words pierced through me like a million little knives, my body went numb, my mind went blank, my heart shattered. With those words, I felt I had failed my husband, and our daughter. It must be my fault, I have not fallen out of love with him, I must have done something to push him away.

That day I decided I would be the best wife there could be. He would never come home to a messy house, to not have a meal prepared for him, he wouldn’t lift a finger, I would care for our daughter, and work from home, all because I loved him and wanted him to love me like he once did.

I gave everything to a man who did not give me anything in return. I gave him my heart, my mind, my time, my energy, my soul, but it was never enough, he always wanted more. I always did my best to give him everything he wanted, everything he deserved. In the process of trying to make him love me, I lost myself. All these extra things I was doing it was not me, yes I would cook for him and I would do the laundry, but I went above and beyond, I was exhausted physically and mentally. I could not do it anymore.

I went away for a week, to have some space to let things cool off. Maybe the time apart, though it was short, maybe he would miss me, maybe he would see that he needed me as I felt I needed him.

The night I got home, that was the night he left. He picked me up at the airport and brought me home like there was nothing wrong, and when we got home he packed a bag and told me he was leaving, he was going to stay with his brother.

I saw my future slip away, everything I had ever planned and hoped and dreamed, it was gone. Just like that it faded away. I wondered what my next month would look like, my next week, my next day.

My daughter was asleep, and I sit on the couch crying, crying out to God, “Please, why are you doing this to me? What did I ever do? Don’t I deserve happiness?”

I waited, two hopeless months. Hoping, praying, and wishing, wishing for a miracle, wishing for my husband to come back to me, praying for some divine intervention to turn his heart back to me. But, that never happened, instead almost two months after him leaving, he told me he was happy to see I was happy. I thought is he crazy? I am happy? My happiness was my family, him and my baby girl, part of my family was missing, part of my happiness was gone. I couldn’t say this to him, so I sat silent. I sat there and looked at him as he told me we can never be together, we could end up in a worst place than we are now. For our daughter and our sanity being apart was best, and in that moment I let him go and decided to live for me and my daughter.