From real life. “After 40 years of marriage, my husband decided to leave for his mistress”: I was left alone

I remember how he sat down across from me, his face tense, his hands shaking.

I'm sitting at the kitchen table, staring into a cup of cold tea. Yesterday keeps coming back to me like a bad dream. I feel like the ground beneath my feet has suddenly disappeared, and my whole life has fallen apart. After 40 years of marriage, my husband, Andrzej, has packed his bags and left. To her. To the woman I only found out about a few weeks ago.

I remember when he sat down across from me, his face tense, his hands shaking. I thought he wanted to talk about something important – maybe our health, maybe our retirement plans. But his words hit me like a punch.

– Maria, I have to tell you something. I have someone. For two years… I love her. I want to start a new life.

At first I thought he was joking. I looked at him, waiting for an explanation, for him to calm down. But his gaze was hard, full of something I had never seen in him before. Determination? Maybe relief that he finally said it?

– Someone? Andrzej, what are you talking about? We're married after all. 40 years together, shared a home, children, grandchildren. How can you throw it all in the trash? – I said, but my voice was shaking and the words seemed meaningless.

– Maria, it's not that I don't appreciate what we had. But understand… with her I feel like I'm alive. That I can still be happy. – His words were like daggers stabbing my heart.

– Happy? What about my happiness? What about us? Andrzej, I sacrificed my whole life for us! You were my everything – I shouted, but he just looked down.

I don't know how long we sat in that silence. I only remember him getting up, packing his bags and leaving without looking back. Now this house, which for years had been filled with laughter, conversations and warmth, seems alien, cold, empty.

I look at the pictures hanging on the wall – our wedding, the birth of our children, the seaside vacations. Was it all a lie? Did he pretend to love me all these years? Or maybe something changed in him and I didn't notice?

I try to remember the last time he looked at me the way he used to – with love, with tenderness. Maybe it was a long time ago and I just didn't want to see it. Maybe I was too busy with home, family, everyday duties to notice that we were drifting apart.

But now I'm alone. Alone with questions that have no answers. Alone with a sense of betrayal and failure. For 40 years I believed that our marriage was something solid, something that nothing could destroy. And now everything we built together seems to have no meaning.

I have a few missed calls from my children on my phone. They want to know how I feel, if I need anything. But I don't answer. I can't talk about what happened yet. I don't want to hear their questions, their sympathy. I have to process all this by myself.

Maybe the day will come when I will be able to look at it from a distance, when I will find the strength to move forward. But today I only feel pain. The pain of losing a man who meant the world to me, and who decided to leave and start a new life. Without me.

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