Loneliness Unspoken

My life reads like an epic, harrowing tale filled with twists and turns and seemingly insurmountable obstacles. I have experienced things that most people never face in their lifetime but I have survived it all! I feel like a warrior who won the greatest battle. The only problem with being a protagonist in the story of my own life is the fact that there can’t be two heroes, which makes for a very lonely life.

Loneliness has become a constant white noise that I have grown so used to hearing, I live by its rhythm. Ironic considering I am married with kids and have no reason to feel lonely, but I do.  

Sadly, like most women, I am a paradox. I am a force to be reckoned with at work. I am strong, resilient and capable. Yet silently I am a hopeless romantic, the damsel in distress waiting for some grand gesture that demonstrates my prince’s love and affection. And I wait. And I wait. The tragedy here is the fact that no matter what I do or say, the love language I speak is completely different from my husband’s and so we are both left meandering through this marriage like two lost ships at sea. For someone so strong and capable, I am weak when it comes to love. I wear my heart on my sleeve and love fully. My weakness comes with the fact that I have left my emotional wellbeing firmly at the feet of the man I chose to marry, hoping and praying that one day, I would finally get what I long for. But humans are fallible creatures by their very nature. To expect someone else to be exclusively invested in my own happiness is unrealistic and unattainable. It’s a rarity to find someone who checks every box that you have in your head of your perfect relationship. I have very little to complain about by way of morals and values in the man I chose to marry. I just married someone who opts for emotional detachment and survives on mundane domesticity. I married someone who is indifferent when I am grandiose, who is complacent when I am restless and who never “sees” me when I desperately need to be seen.

Marriage is more than being parents to children, for me it’s about the relationship between a man and a woman. The very foundation of that marriage should be the passion and love and intimacy shared.  It should be a silent flame that doesn’t often have to burn brightly but should never dim.