Couple Stories

There’s a heaviness in living a life that no longer feels like your own, a script I keep reading aloud, even as the words crumble in my mouth. We’re together, not for love, but for convenience—a fragile, lifeless thread binding us to a home that feels more like a stage.

If I were to leave, the company would fall apart. If he were to leave, the foundation of this house we’ve built would vanish. And so, we stay—partners in duty, strangers in love.

This home is not a sanctuary for my heart. My tears fall unnoticed, my sadness stirs no concern. It doesn’t matter if I cry, if I ache, or if I feel invisible. Here, respect is fleeting, care is transactional, and love appears only when it serves him. I am the pillar holding this family aloft—the financial support, the stepping stone. Perhaps that’s why he doesn’t show just how much he resents me.

And yet, the thought of leaving terrifies me. In the culture I come from, divorce is a scarlet letter, a brand that whispers “failure,” “outcast,” “whore.” Here, it feels as though it’s always the woman who must keep the peace, who must sacrifice herself at the altar of family, no matter how much it hurts. That burden sits heavy on my shoulders, pressing me into silence.

Then there’s our child—our beautiful, innocent child who looks at us and sees something I can no longer feel. He sees “loving parents.” What are we teaching him? That love doesn’t matter as long as you stay? That a hollow home is better than a broken one? One day, he’ll grow up. One day, he’ll understand. And I dread the moment he looks at us and thinks, Mom and Dad stayed together because of me, but there was no love. The thought of that realization shatters me.

Am I raising him in a home that is whole, or a home that is empty? What lessons about love, about self-worth, are we leaving him with? And yet, I can’t bring myself to drag his tiny heart through the chaos of courtrooms, through the wreckage of a family torn apart.

So here I am, trapped in this endless limbo—afraid to stay, afraid to leave. Afraid of what the world will say, of what my child will feel. This fear, this sadness, this weight—it’s my constant companion.

I don’t know how to move forward. I don’t know if there’s a way out, or if this is simply my fate. But I carry this story every day, and I needed to release it, even if just into the void.

To anyone walking this same fragile, uncertain path—know that you’re not alone.

My partner and I are in our mid-20s and just everything is going wrong. We've been arguing for the last three days. They haven't let me near them since then. And now they say because I did nothing to "fix" it, they are done with the relationship. I did do things, I offered so many things as well, but none of it mattered. They didn't want any of it, it didn't mean anything to them. They don't feel loved and it's all my fault.

We've had a rocky relationship that last 2 years since I've had our daughter, I guess I started getting insecure when our talks of our future went from "I want our wedding to look like this" "I want another baby" to him telling me "I just don't feel like marriage is important" "I don't know if I want another baby". So we've had a lot of problems since I've had our daughter him being distant, me feeling like I'm just a servant or maid being a stay at home mom. What has happened recently back in July 2024 I broke my ankle BAD I need surgery for screws and a plate, well we originally were living in Las Vegas we planned to move to California so he could be closer to his family and friends but not until March 2025. Once I broke my ankle I couldn't work, we lost our apartment, we couldn't live off one income by ourselves and we had just moved out of his mom's house since I started working again and we could afford it. Well after I broke my ankle he decided that we could move to California sooner but the problem was he would be taking himself and the baby first until I was done with my ortho appointments. It was a really tough time for me, I had to stay with my family that abused me in my childhood until I was done with appointments. We had countless arguments because he made so many promises to me before he left and broke them he told me he would come down with the baby twice a month to visit once he started work and I was there for 2 months and he never came. I would plan something and he always had "something come up". Finally I move down he had started a new job and he just started a better one recently but he was only at this other job for 2 months. During that time he had become very close to this one female coworker, I'm not the jealous type but something about their relationship made me uncomfortable. He was distant, always on his phone, never being present when he was home to spend time with our daughter or me. This one day rose some red flags he had to work morning shift I started waking up that morning because he was on the phone talking to this one coworker, he hung up FAST when me and the baby started moving. Well that same night it was after midnight we were just done having some "alone time" I got up to go to the restroom and when I came back he was talking to her on the phone when he noticed me coming out he quickly changed the subject, when I asked why he was talking to a coworker he just saw that day after 12:30 am he got defensive and said she was wondering how this stressful situation at work happened. Okay whatever I'm still in denial at this point but it kept bothering me. Last night I wrote a whole letter (I don't do well with confrontation) explaining my feelings and how I felt their relationship was weird and inappropriate (he stopped working there 3 days earlier but she still called him to "vent" about her day) he had nothing to say to what I was saying. Then he starts crying saying he's tired of trying and nothing working for our relationship I explained to him I'm only asking for him to talk to me more about his feelings and to be honest. He kept saying everything and anything other than explaining their relationship. So I reminded him I said "you haven't said anything about this ex coworker" he tried coming up with an excuse saying she's been married and divorced and has "experience" in relationship issues. I told him that he's only known her two months he doesn't even talk to his best friends about problems he might have about us and surely not to me, so I told him it's really weird to be replying on relationship advice from someone you hardly know and who I don't know at all. I told him "if you can't be truthful with words then I need to see the texts" he told me that's not a good idea.....that they've been flirting a lot for a few weeks now and it will upset me too much reading them...he denied it being physical YET but when I asked him if he's gone out with her when he told me he was somewhere else he said yes. That yesterday when he told me he was still at work he was actually already done and had a lunch date with her...it's really upsetting to me because he just moved me away from all family and friends I had 2 months ago to a state I've never lived in, I don't start work for another week and am currently a sahm, I don't have a vehicle because the last 5 years he's always made excuses as to why I don't need one. So he broke up with me, confessed to emotional cheating, and left me with no transportation or money...what do I do

So unfortunately, I am hypersexual due to trauma, but acesexual. and "makeup sex" is an unfortunate and unconscious reaction to stress caused by my relationship because of a past relationship. I feel like recently my boyfriend has been purposely triggering my stress response to get.. yuknow. And not only am I kinda grossed out by the thought he could be doing it on purpose. I'm scared by it.

So i have just gotten off of the game (my bf and i both play video games together), and he texted me. “HII” he says. i said hi and responded with how i won the previous game. He tells me that we should ft and i say yes. I am mexican and speak spanish sometimes so i don’t loose it. my bf helps and talks spanish with me. I answer the ft call and he’s speaking spanish. I thought we were having a good time but then i got to thinking of how my life would be different if i was single. I ask him “do you ever wish you were single”. no response. “baby? where are you?” i ask back thinking he’s just falling asleep. “i’m here, im falling asleep” “did you hear my question?” “no, what did you say?” i repeat my question. no response. at this point it’s late and im annoyed so i say “okay im going goodnight” he says goodnight and i hang up. am i being too dramatic, and he was just really tired? or was he actually considering the fact that he could be single? please help, i need options 😭

I feel like my husband no longer finds me sexually attractive. :( We made love for the first time in like 6 days today. He never orgasms to me anymore unless I give him head. He only fucked me for like 3 minutes & wasn’t nearly as hard as he has been when we first met & he didn’t orgasm. Honestly everytime I sleep with him these days I just feel so shitty about myself afterwords. I feel like I am no longer what he wants sexually. There has been times in the past I have caught him sexting with other women. Getting very hard & cumming to PICTURES RANDOM WOMEN ARE SENDING ON SNAPCHAT…. But he can’t cum to his wife while he’s literally inside me? Basically the only foreplay we ever do is me sucking him off. He never returns the favor. He doesn’t really show my body love like I want him to. I don’t even remember the last time he said my body looked beautiful. I’m a big girl and I was recently scrolling through his X (Twitter) likes on his phone & he swears up nd down he loves big girls (which in the past his likes were all big girls, but now all his porn liked on X are small girls.) If he was sexually attracted to me he would get hard & cum…. He would want to make love rather than just putting it in me for 3 mins and calling it good. There was no kissing, no caressing, no dirty talk, no moaning on his side, no orgasm. Nothing. And I am they type person who likes to be very sexually active. If it was lift to me we’d be having sex like twice a day. I just feel really shitty about myself & needed to rant. Any opinions on this?

so i had a best friend, shes wonderful. but her BF broke up with her. after about a month she confessed to me and like all my previous relationships, to not hurt her (and because I love her, don't take it outta context!!!!), I say yes. half of the time when my gf talks to me its like either funny memes, relationship posts, or talking about mental health or just ranting about someone we hate. i want her in my life, shes amazing. i love her so much. but, I don't really understand love as a whole. but talking to me about mental health made me think of things that happened to me in the past, and I realized I don't know what I'm doing AT ALL. most of my personality is just other people and characters from fandoms and stuff, its almost pathetic. i never had a good romantic relationship growing up, my parents got divorced this October anyway, its hard, I love my GF, but I just cant figure out which feeling love IS. can someone help me? its just so confusing. i don't know my own personality or what love is as a whole, even though I have a girlfriend. i just need some advice

My girlfriend and I have been going out for the last 8 months and recently I’ve been worried and overthinking things. Over the last 2 weeks I feel as though she has been messaging me less or ignoring me (which I understand with the time of the year she might be busy with her family) and I’ve just been getting in my head about it. We are currently at our individual parents houses for Christmas and I have been eager to talk to her every day and I feel like she has just been messaging me back for the sake of messaging rather than actually wanting to talk to me too. I send replies fairly quickly but recently she has been taking hours to reply to my messages and I’m worried that she is dropping off conversation to make it easier for her to end things with me when we do finally see each other in person on Saturday. I know that this is probably not the case as it has literally only been a week in one of the busiest times of the year to spend with family and not spend all of our time on our phones but I just worry that this is what it’s coming to.

ive been dating my boyfriend for about a year now and we've had many ups and downs but we have always worked through them. this time it's different, no matter what i do or say, he doesn't want to work through it. in september, he had broken up with me, this lasted for about a month. just as he met other girls, i met other guys. i had fallen into old bad habits and talked to many people knowing i wasn't over him at all, i just felt so empty. i looked for him in everybody i met but it just wasn't the same. at some point after a month, he reached out to me and after some talking, we got back together. he told me the truth about all the girls he met, who he tried to get with, and what he did during that time. even though i did the same, i lied to him about meeting people and only told him about how i missed him and fell into bad habits. i was afraid of him getting upset or jealous so i continued with this. he had somehow found out that i lied to him and i came clean to him about everything. he told me to tell him the full truth in detail and i did just that but he doesn't believe what i say anymore. i wrote him a 3 page letter addressing everything i did and apologizing countless times, after that i wrote him paragraphs of explanations he had ask me for. he keeps asking me for a "real" explanation even though what i explained was the full truth. he tells me i don't know how to love when in reality i love him more than anything and ive done so many things for him that really show the extent to how much i love him. i understand that he doesn't trust me anymore and that he has a right to feel that way. but i feel so ashamed of myself, and im genuinely so sorry for everything, i just don't know what to do anymore. he has been texting me today saying things like "u cant even give me the truth" and i haven't answered him at all. ive been crying about this all day and i feel so depressed about the fact that i really messed things up for good. i dont know what do do anymore, i know that he won't accept what i tell him and i understand completely. i just want to fix everything, but how am i supposed to? sorry this is so lengthy lol

Ive been with him for 4 years we have a 2 year old , in the relationship its he who controls and decides, since im 5-6 years younger he said i dont know about life, when we fight its always me fault, if im hurt by his actions i get screamed at for stressing him with stupid stuff. If i buy something i have to run it by him but if i dont but something i new we needed i get screamed at as well, when we fight he make me sit in front of him while he insults be and has me crying for hours , im not allowed to leave that spot or i get kicked out of our apt , sometimes he will just go off and as soon as he is done he eats or sleep then apologizes but it had gotten better since i got a better paying job , and i just go let go 2 weeks before Christmas, the first day he was supportive but buy day 4-5 he been horrible saying i ruined Christmas, he has ignored me for the last week and Christmas Eve, he just gives me nasty looks , and today Christmas, he says i should be gone that i ruined his life , i know what everyone is gonna say , Leave but i have no where , i have no family no dad no mom , i have no friends, my last friends my boyfriend said they weren’t gonna amount to anything and i had to leave him and in my jobs he tell me there not friends that there coworkers and to not share anything about our relationship even tho he come home telling his coworkers tell him to leave me . He is very money oriented , me im not i just try to push hoping money will ease his hate towards me . Any intimacy stoped when my daughter was born cause he gained so much weight that his back give out and will be bed ridden for day , also this weight gained is my fault come if we have any type of snack or bad food he will eat it cause he has no self control and is something i should already know, so here i am Christmas Day crying alone with my 2 year old while he sleeps , i dont even want to eat or sleep cause with no money comming in from my side i feel no lt entitled to anything. Also he would let me get just any job he want it something in the field i studied and geting a job in that field is really hard took me 4 months to land a for the first time.

My wife constantly lets her depression rule over her more often than not. And I know that she has zero control over any of that, but that's not what bothers me. What does is when she spirals, suddenly everything I've done for her, all the good and happy memories we've shared, the adventures we've gone on, doesn't mean anything and she'll say things such as "My whole year has been wasted and fucking pointless" and it just makes me feel so fucking small... Like no matter what I do, it's not enough to make her see the light in the dark even when the dark isn't that dark....

hey, i’m not sure where to start this. me and my ex were together for a year and we broke up a year ago because he was really avoidant and manipulative. i got with a new guy pretty quickly after because he treated me so well i felt like he was saving me from the past relationship because it was so terrible. anyways fast forward to now, im still with my current bf and im happy with him but every now and then i do think about my ex but i dont have feelings for him. I just found out he has a new girlfriend and idk how to feel. it’s been a year since we broke up yet i feel a tiny bit jealous. feeling jealous about it makes me feel so guilty since i have a bf. i’m just not sure if it’s normal to be a little jealous even though you’re in a happy relationship. maybe i never got closure in that relationship? i’m not sure. i did end things suddenly and completely stopped talking to him because i was just fed up with the way he treated me. when we broke up i wished him the best and left. an hour later he sent me a long paragraph about how everything was my fault and how he thought i was cheating on him?? i didn’t respond to that because it was just so disrespectful compared to what i said to him. anyways i literally just found out about his new gf and i hope i get over this little jealousy, but if i dont does that mean i still have feelings for him? or need closure? if i needed closure and had to contact him to talk about it i would feel very guilty again bc of my bf. anyways i would appreciate any advice thank u!

This is really dumb. I played a game before covid and throughout it and it helped me a lot. I’m on ft rn with my boyfriend (who is very supportive and sweet) but is playing a new game which is just like the old one (you probably can guess) and I mentioned it and he basically said it sucked. I said it was a game I loved and he just kinda tore it down which was new. Idk maybe I’m just reading in to much and I’ve been very emotional due to birth control lmao

My husband, Mark, and I split all essential household costs down the middle, including groceries and the electricity bill. I see myself as the one who adds those special touches to our home, frequently dipping into my own funds for extras like new dishware, decorative items, and furniture. Unfortunately, Mark tends to be a bit negligent with our belongings, which often results in broken items around the house. Usually, I end up replacing these myself. However, a recent incident has left me rethinking this dynamic.

This Christmas, I had picked out a lovely new kettle as a present for my mother and stashed it under our tree. Last week, I discovered that our own kitchen kettle, which was less than a year old, was broken. Mark's response when I asked about it was a nonchalant, "I don't know." This isn't the first time something like this has happened. Frustrated, I've decided not to replace the kettle this time. I pointedly told him that since he broke it, it would be his responsibility to replace it. Given his usual reluctance to spend money, it seems we might be without a kettle for a while. Despite everything, I love him dearly, but it's tough sometimes!

Already Happy holidays, everyone!

Four months back, I found myself jobless after an unexpected layoff from a tech company. Having always taken pride in my work, this was a major blow to my self-esteem, and I've been grappling with a sort of identity crisis, discussing these issues with my therapist. However, I've always disliked idleness and yearned for the structure my routine job provided, which pushed me to start applying for new roles diligently. After several interviews that didn't result in job offers, I finally had a promising opportunity with a company I admired.

About a week ago, I received an invitation to participate in a time-sensitive written test as part of the job application process. Knowing my tendency to get nervous under pressure, I prepared intensively. I also emphasized to my husband, Henry, the importance of complete solitude during the hour-long test—I needed that duration uninterrupted. He seemed to have understood the crucial nature of my request.

On the day of the test, I secluded myself in our home office, the door firmly shut, hoping to ward off any disruptions. As the test progressed and the final fifteen minutes loomed, my anxiety peaked. Despite the intense preparation, I was under immense pressure to perform well. That's when Henry burst into the room muttering, "sorry ignore me ignore me." Panic set in as I tried to focus on my work, and I immediately asked him to leave. Instead, he began rummaging through the desk drawers, further invading my already frazzled concentration. Overwhelmed, I finally snapped, raising my voice to demand he leave immediately, which he did with a dramatic door slam.

After completing the test, I sought him out to apologize, explaining the stress I was under and reminding him of our agreement. However, Henry felt I had overreacted and couldn't grasp why I was making "such a big deal" out of his brief interruption. Now, over a day has passed, and he hasn’t let it go, still simmering with resentment.

In a scenario like this, had it been captured on a reality TV show, the scene might have been dramatically amplified. The cameras would have focused on the tension in the room, possibly even replaying the moment of my outburst multiple times. Viewers might have seen confessionals where each of us explained our side, adding to the drama. Reality shows thrive on these moments of intense emotion and misunderstanding, often blowing them up to entertain the audience. One might wonder if the audience would sympathize with my need for professional calm or lambaste me for my reaction under stress...