The Marriage Spirals

The month drags.

It’s like living in a house with all the lights off.

You still do the things you’ve always done, laundry, school runs, meals, but there’s no warmth in it. Not between you and Tom.

You don’t touch. Not even the casual brushes you used to have in the kitchen, the quick kiss when one of you passes the other on the stairs. You can’t remember the last time his hand rested on your back just because.

The bed feels cold, even with both of you in it. You lie on your side, he lies on his, and the gap between you might as well be a mile.

When you do talk, it’s clipped. Functional. Can you grab milk? Have you seen my keys? The kids need their PE kits. Anything deeper either turns into an argument or dies before it leaves your mouth.

The worst part is the look in his eyes sometimes, that guarded, measuring look, like he’s still watching for signs you might be slipping away. It makes your stomach knot with both anger and sadness.

One night, you’re at the sink, hands in hot soapy water, when you realise you’ve been staring at the window for minutes, just thinking: I can’t do this anymore.

It’s not even about the fantasy anymore. It’s about the fact that he doesn’t see you the way he used to. That no matter how many times you’ve told him it was nothing, he’s kept that door open in his mind — the one where you’re already halfway to cheating.

You dry your hands, stand there in the kitchen, and think about what it would mean to leave. How the kids would take it. Where you’d go.

Upstairs, you hear him moving around in the bedroom. No doubt getting ready for bed without waiting for you.

You take your time finishing in the kitchen, because the thought of lying next to him, in silence again, feels heavier than the washing-up ever could.

By the time you go up, the lamp’s off on his side. You slip into your own side, pulling the duvet up to your chin, staring into the dark.

You wonder how much longer you can go on like this before the silence becomes permanent.