I Think We Are Both Tired Enough To Hurt Each Other Mostly Through Absence Now

Dear Delyara, No dramatic fights. No smashed trust. No obvious villain. Just absence. The absence of softness. The absence of emotional curiosity. The absence of being asked the second question. The absence of feeling met before I become visibly frayed. The absence of the kind of daily tenderness that makes a woman feel like she lives with a partner instead of beside another exhausted adult managing the same set of logistics. That is what scares me. Because absence is so hard to defend as pain. There is no single event to point to. Nothing easy to prove. And yet the body knows when it is living inside a relationship that has become too functional and not nearly warm enough. I don’t think we stopped loving each other in one dramatic moment. I think tiredness has been removing little pieces quietly. And I am afraid of how much can disappear that way before anyone admits what is actually happening.