Thirty Years Together Without Love: How to Heal After Discovering the Truth.
What I need is to let it all out. Not to complain, but to have someone truly listen and understand. My loved ones know nothing. My children and grandchildren are convinced that I have a solid marriage — a perfect union with my husband. I never had close friends I could confide something like this to, out of fear of gossip and a lack of strength to explain… or justify.
Álvaro and I have been together for more than thirty years. We met in 1989. I was 22, and he was 25. We were young, full of dreams and hope. He seemed serious, trustworthy — someone I could build a life with. We married fairly quickly, even though my parents weren’t thrilled about it. But I insisted. I loved him.
The beginning was hard. The 90s weren’t easy: two young kids, little money. But we made it through. In the early 2000s, life started to improve — jobs, stability, our own apartment. We didn’t have much, but we had enough, and the kids were always well cared for.
Today, we have three adult children. Two daughters, now with their own families and children. Our youngest son isn’t married yet, but he lives on his own. Álvaro and I are alone in our apartment. We could be enjoying peace, silence, a second youth. But a few months ago, everything collapsed.
I noticed Álvaro had changed. He became irritable, distant. He barely spoke at dinner, spent long hours at work, showed no interest in me or the grandchildren. I wondered if there was someone else. Or maybe financial trouble — debts, loans, something he didn’t want to admit. But what I discovered was worse than any affair.
Álvaro asked for a divorce.
When I asked him why, he looked at me coldly and said: “I never loved you. I married you out of spite. The woman I loved married a rich man, and out of anger, I proposed to you. She moved abroad, and I resigned myself to it. But she recently passed away, and I realized I’ve never truly lived my own life.”
I couldn’t believe it. He spoke so calmly, as if he were commenting on the weather. No regret. No compassion. I just listened, with one thought pounding in my head: “So it was all a lie? All these years — just a farce?”
He confessed that he continued seeing her even after our wedding. They eventually parted ways, and she moved to Europe with her husband. We had children, and he believed it was “the right thing to do” since I was “a good mother and reliable wife.” Now that she’s gone, he wants to “live for himself” and insists we sell the apartment and buy separate places.
How do you respond to something like that?
All my life, I believed we were just a little different. That he wasn’t affectionate — fine. That he never said “I love you” — not all men are expressive. I justified it all. I explained it away. Now I realize it wasn’t his personality — it was indifference. I was there like furniture, a habit. We shared routines, but not our souls.
I’m 56 years old. And I feel betrayed at the most vulnerable point in my life. When you’ve already given everything — your youth, your health, years of devotion… and in return, you get a cold confession: “I never loved you.”
What hurts most isn’t what he did to me. It’s the woman I could have been, if only I had known the truth sooner. If I hadn’t stayed with someone who couldn’t care less. If I hadn’t had his children, waited up for him at night, cooked his favorite meals. And he simply endured. Stayed by my side because it was easier. He had his reasons: “revenge,” “resignation,” “convenience.” But does that justify it?
I don’t know how to live now. Turns out I lived in a fantasy. Nothing was real. Love is no guarantee. You can be a good wife — faithful, dependable, loving — and still be treated as disposable.
Women, girls, anyone who’s been through something like this — tell me, how do you move on? How do you let go? How do you breathe again? I’m no longer young. I just want some peace. Some respect. A little warmth — not from him, no. From the world. From myself.
I’m tired of being strong. But it seems I have no other choice.
