The Silence That Told Me Everything

There was a long stretch of my marriage where my husband traveled a lot for work.

Conferences. Meetings. Professional things that existed in a world I was never part of.

And I remember noticing something about myself that I didn’t quite know what to do with at the time.

When he was getting ready to leave, I felt… relieved.

Not dramatically. Not with fireworks or rebellion. Just a quiet sense of spaciousness opening up in my chest. Like I could breathe more easily for a few days.

I would catch myself feeling excited and then immediately judge it.

That’s not normal, I’d think. You shouldn’t be glad your husband is leaving.

So I corrected the thought before it went anywhere dangerous.

I told myself a nicer story.

I’d say things like, I just enjoy my alone time.

Or, It’s healthy to miss each other.

Or, I like having the house to myself now and then.

All of that sounded reasonable. Mature, even.

And technically, it wasn’t untrue.

I did like the quiet. I liked not having to explain what I was doing or why. I liked eating when I wanted, watching what I wanted, moving through my own space without feeling subtly monitored or assessed.

I liked not being interfered with.

I liked not being judged.

I never said it that way back then. I didn’t have that language yet. But my body knew.

Here’s the part I didn’t admit to anyone.

When he came back, I told myself I was happy to see him. I smiled. I played the role. I said the words you’re supposed to say.

But if I’m honest now — really honest — I wasn’t all that glad he came back.

The relief closed again. The air thickened. Something in me went back into containment.

And during those trips, something else happened that I didn’t understand until much later.

I started fantasizing.

Not about another man. Not about an affair.

About a different life.

I would find myself wondering, What if something happened to him?

Not wishing harm. Just… imagining.

Where would I live?

Would I stay here, in this place we lived for his job?

Or would I go somewhere else entirely?

What would my house look like if it were mine?

Would I work? What would I do?

What would my days feel like?

These weren’t fleeting thoughts. They were oddly detailed. Like my mind was sketching blueprints.

At the time, I was disturbed by them.

What kind of wife thinks like this?

What kind of person imagines a life without their spouse?

So I did what I had always done.

I pushed the thoughts away and told myself another story.

I told myself I was just daydreaming.

I told myself everyone wonders about alternate lives sometimes.

I told myself it didn’t mean anything.

What I didn’t understand then — and what I see so clearly now — is that my subconscious was trying to show me something.

It wasn’t plotting escape.

It wasn’t being disloyal.

It was searching for air.

It was offering me images of possibility because my conscious mind couldn’t yet tolerate the truth.

The truth was that the relationship was so constricting, so misaligned, so quietly oppressive that my psyche had to imagine absence in order to feel alive.

I couldn’t imagine leaving him.

So my mind imagined life without him.

That’s an important distinction.

At the time, I thought those fantasies meant something was wrong with me.

Now I understand they were signals.

Gentle ones, actually. Persistent. Patient.

They were my inner self tapping on the glass, saying, There is more than this.

When I look back, I don’t feel shame about those thoughts anymore.

I feel compassion.

Because that was the only way my system knew how to communicate with me then.

And I know now that many women have versions of this story.

They don’t always fantasize about absence. Sometimes it’s illness. Sometimes it’s a move. Sometimes it’s a vague sense of If something external changed, I could finally be myself.

What they all have in common is this:

The longing isn’t for loss.

It’s for relief.

And relief is information.

Not something to judge.

Something to listen to.