Last year, on a cold October evening, I sat in my grandparents’ kitchen at five in the morning and wrote to another man. It was the loneliest night of my life. Crying, with tears streaming down my face, I wrote: ‘I feel powerless and alone.’
Many thoughts raced through my mind that cold night at the kitchen table as I wrote an email to the other man. How did it get to this point? I thought my husband and I had a good relationship. I thought we could talk about anything. Why I felt so alone?
I continued to write, ignoring the tears that blurred my vision. Something deep inside told me not to write such personal things to a friend I met just a month ago. But it was the only thing I could do. Certainly no one else would understand me, not even my husband Nathan.
So I wrote, “Maybe I’ve tried to carry a burden alone for too long. I feel like there was no one I could turn to who felt the same way.” The more I wrote, the more I cried. Feelings of Guilt and shame overcame me.
Why do I trust another man who is not my husband?
Fa Barboza / Unsplash
What happens if he finds out I wrote all this to someone else instead of telling him? Will he feel betrayed? Will he ever forgive me? What if he never trusts me again?
But my loneliness was stronger than my fears. If I carried the burden alone any longer, I would collapse. I had to share the burden with someone before I collapsed under his weight.
So my fingers continued to tap the keys restlessly.
I know Nathan can and should read this, and I’m afraid to send it. But I’ve reached a point where I don’t think things can go on like this. I’m so tired of lying in bed and not being able to fall asleep. I’m not kidding if I think this could kill me if it doesn’t change. If there’s a time when I need a good night’s sleep, it’s now. My head is pounding even just laying in bed trying to sleep.
After reading the email repeatedly, I pressed to steerwent back to bed and fell asleep. Finally I could sleep.
Just an hour later, I woke up to unexpected sounds: a beeping microwave, the monotonous churning of a citrus juicer, and the local morning news brought me back to reality. My grandparents and the sounds of their breakfast routine woke me from my sleep.
My head pounded heavily. Unable to move my limbs, I lay in bed for hours, weakened by the insomnia, the tears shed, and the weight of guilt and shame. The morning flew by unnoticed.
But I couldn’t stay there forever. My growling stomach forced me to get up to look for something to eat. The pounding in my head intensified as soon as I stood up. How could I reach the kitchen? Step by step I entered the kitchen. A sandwich, carefully prepared by my husband, was waiting for me on the table – did I deserve it?
With shaking hands I picked up the bread. I forced myself to take a bite. The door swung open.
“Ruth honey, how are you?” Grandma exclaimed, kissing my head while caressing my shoulders. “Girl! What’s going on? Are you sick or something?” Grandpa added.
With the bite I had just taken still stuck in my throat, I hurriedly muttered an answer. Should they talk to me now? Why do they keep touching me? I finished the sandwich in seconds; I had to get out of there. I washed my plate as quickly as my hands could.
Suddenly everything became too much for me; the apartment looked so small and messy, and everyone was getting on my nerves. In a panic I started looking for my husband. “Do you feel like going for a walk?”
Outside I expected that I could escape my fear, but the guilt and shame followed me every step of the way. Can a walk last longer than this? Words failed me.
The heaviness and tension in the air made it difficult to think. Why didn’t he say anything? Did he read the email? Was he just tired? The flood of questions overwhelmed me and filled me with dismay. Since I didn’t know the answers, was there any worse feeling than this?
I don’t know how we got to the park. The heavy atmosphere distorted my sense of time, turning minutes into hours. People ran by as if they were in a different time zone than us. But we stood still, floating in a bubble of ignorance, separated from the world around us. Two people stuck in time and space, haunted by our doubts and fears.
We sat down on a cold wooden bench. As we sat next to each other, yet miles apart, the distance between us on that park bench seemed further away than ever. I tried to catch his gaze, but our eyes didn’t meet. A deafening silence filled the air. He knows.
I still don’t know how we got back to the grandparents. But we remained silent and with every minute the distance between us increased. How much longer could I tolerate this? Exhausted, we lay down in bed to rest. But the rest didn’t come.
Time dragged on forever, until my husband broke the silence with four words: I read the email
My breathing stopped. A numbing fear came over me. Those four words shattered my world. “I don’t understand,” he said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? Why were you hiding from me?’
I couldn’t find an answer. The hurt and pain in his voice pierced my heart. How could I betray him? I took a deep breath and said the only words that came to mind. ‘I didn’t know how to tell you. I thought you wouldn’t understand.’
He sighed and after a long silence replied, “When I read that email, I thought I lost you. You seemed so far away from me and I felt so alone. But if you think I can’t understand you, what’s the point?’
He began to nervously scribble on a piece of paper. The reality of the situation slowly dawned on me. Leaving the note on the bedside table, he stood up and walked to the door, slumping his shoulders and avoiding any eye contact.
For seconds I stood there paralyzed, but one thought flashed through my mind: I had to hug him. If it doesn’t happen now, I’ll lose him forever. We stood still in what seemed like an endless embrace. Then the tears started to flow.
After he read the email, I thought I had lost him, but instead we grew closer
Yep Gambardella/Pexels
We talked about everything. I told him about my silent struggle of the past years. He said he just wanted to know how I felt and what I needed. I could confide in him with everything.
The heaviness started to rise. My head stopped pounding. Our eyes met again and we found each other. Finally peace came and we fell asleep.
What happened to my husband and me could happen to anyone
No matter how strong your relationship is or how much you love each other, if you become afraid of open communication, you’re heading down a slippery slope.
There is a story mentioned by psychologist Jordan Peterson in his book 12 rules for life. It’s about a dragon on a bed. One day a young boy finds the mythical animal in his room. It is not scary because it is small in size.
When the boy tells his mother, she does not want to believe him. The lack of open communication allows the dragon to persist and grow bigger every day until it runs away with the house.
If a problem is not talked about openly, the problem becomes bigger than anyone can handle. In the worst case, the family loses their home. My husband and I went down that path due to a lack of open communication.
Although it left us both heartbroken, the email I sent opened the conversation between us – a conversation we so desperately needed – and once all the feelings came to light, they lost their power.
Silence is a secret destroyer. It sneaks up on you unnoticed and strikes when you least expect it. Sometimes the blow comes when it’s already too late. The sooner we muster the courage to open up, the less the problem can grow.
It is not my intention to tell anyone what to do. I know relationship dynamics are incredibly complex. Often there are children involved, or the partner does not consider the other person in the relationship.
But silence never solves the problem, no matter how complicated it is. When problems remain unresolved long enoughthe consequences are much greater than if they were made public. If you feel like your burden is too heavy, seek (professional) support.
Ruth Alva is a writer who runs and started a storytelling company a medium blog where she regularly appears in publications such as Modern Women and Mindful Mental Health.
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