Indeed, we never lacked anything – at least materially.
For 35 years of my marriage to Piotr, life went according to one rhythm – work, duties, everyday life. Piotr was always busy. As an engineer, he had big projects, deadlines, responsibility on his mind. Every morning he left home early, before I had time to drink my morning coffee, and he came back late, after I had already gone to bed.
– I do this for us – he would always say when I tried to talk about the fact that we rarely spent time together. – I want us to have a decent life, to lack nothing.
And indeed, we never lacked anything – at least materially. We had a beautiful house, a car, we could afford holidays abroad. But each of these things was like a brick in the wall he was building between us. The more he worked, the more invisible I felt.
At the beginning of our marriage, I tried to fight for more time together. I asked him for evenings together, for trips just the two of us. But there was always some excuse – an important project, a crisis at work, tiredness. In time, I stopped asking. I took care of the house, the children, my friends. And Piotr lived his life, which had less and less in common with mine.
Then the kids moved out, and our relationship changed even more. We spent our evenings in two different worlds – I with a book in the living room, he with his laptop in the study. When I tried to start a conversation, he would respond in monosyllables, as if he was just waiting for me to fall silent.
When Piotr suddenly died – a heart attack in the office – I was in shock. We didn’t have time to say goodbye. I didn’t have time to tell him that despite everything I loved him, that I still hoped we’d find time to be together. The funeral was full of people – co-workers, friends from the industry, people I didn’t even know. They came to me and said: „Peter was a wonderful man, so dedicated to his work. Such a role model.”
But none of them talked about Peter as a husband, a father, a human being. Only as an employee.
After his death, the house became eerily quiet. I had been used to his silence before, but now I felt that the silence was something more – a reminder that we had never really been together.
I began to sort through his things. In his study, I found piles of documents, awards, projects that he had created throughout his life. Each of these papers was evidence of his dedication to his work. But among these things, I found nothing that would remind me of us. No vacation photos, no letters, nothing to show that our family was equally important to him.
It was only then that I realized how lonely I had been all those years. Piotr was always there physically, but never emotionally. He gave his life to work, and I gave mine to waiting for him.
Today I look at our younger photos and wonder where we went wrong. Could I have done more to keep him? Should I have fought harder for our marriage? Did he regret not being there as much? I will never know. But I know one thing for sure – being alone with two people is worse than being alone. And I regret that I only realized it after his death.
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