She was twenty-one and I was thirty when we got married.
She was a rising moon, and I considered myself the whole sky.
The age difference made me feel superior. I thought I was wiser and more worldly.
My Mother would often sit quietly and wipe her eyes remembering father.
“May God bless him… Sajid is exactly like his father reborn.”
Hina(my wife) was my mother’s choice. She was soft like raw clay and I believed that I could mold her into whatever shape I wanted.
But I had forgotten that clay has its own fragrance too.
In the early months of marriage, I was very fascinated by her.
Her laughter would steal away my fatigue. When she let her hair loose, it truly felt as if the moon had descended into my home.
Sometimes she would laugh and ask, “Why do you look at me like that?”
And I would smile and change the subject, but the truth was that I simply enjoyed looking at her.
I used to look at her – really look at her.
Her words, her little complaints, her dreams.
After all, a woman is like water, isn’t she?
She takes the shape of whatever vessel she is poured into.
Then life slowly began to tighten its grip around me.
Responsibilities increased, the business expanded, accounts became complicated.
I told myself I had to become serious and practical. Running a household was a duty greater than love.
Sometimes marriages change with time. You can also read Why Love Feels Different After Marriage to understand how relationships evolve after the wedding phase.
I kept earning.
She kept waiting.
The difference was not that I had changed.
The difference was that she was now in my home, and I began to consider her “secure.”
I thought there was no need to console her anymore.
Compliments were unnecessary now.
She already knew I loved her then why say it again?
But love that is never spoken often stops being felt.
She began to speak less.
Earlier, she used to tell me small stories about her day while making evening tea.
Now she would quietly place the cup in front of me, and I would keep scrolling through my phone without asking anything.
Once she used to share everything with me; now she quietly swallowed all her words within herself.
Often, when she asked something, I would brush her off harshly.
I thought she had become more mature.
But no – she was becoming lonely.
Mother often used to say,
“A woman never falls in love with a man’s looks; she falls in love with his behavior.”
One evening I saw her standing before the mirror.
She was looking at herself as if examining a stranger.
I stood at the door silently.
For the first time, I realized I could not even remember the last time I had truly looked at her.
A few days later, I noticed a faint glow on her face.
It was probably something small—perhaps someone had complimented her.
I didn’t ask.
But somewhere inside me, a fear began to rise.
I thought—has she changed?
Then I immediately reassured myself:
No… she is not like that. She would not dare.
We men are strange.
We ignore women, yet still expect flawless loyalty from them.
Father used to say:
“When a woman gets trapped, she does not get trapped by a person first – she gets trapped by a feeling.”
And that feeling is:
“Someone else is seeing me.”
That night I stayed awake for a long time, smoking one cigarette after another.
The pillow beneath my head twisted and folded under the weight of my thoughts.
Beside me, her breathing was calm and steady, yet a wall of silence stood between us.
Emotional distance in relationships often leads to overthinking. Read our story The Overthinking Championship to see how our minds can make things even heavier at night.
I asked myself:
Had I ever told her that she was still beautiful?
Had I ever tried to read the tiredness on her face?
Had I locked her only into the roles of wife and daughter-in-law?
The truth is, a woman does not get trapped quickly.
First she is deprived of her husband’s attention.
Then she slowly begins to lose herself.
And when someone reminds her of her own existence, she startles—
as if hearing her name after years.
One evening I spoke to her.
For the first time, without any reason, without any work.
I said,
“Perhaps after making you mine, after thinking you were secure, I started ignoring you.”
As I said those words, I realized how heavy they felt leaving my mouth.
She remained silent for a long time. Then she said,
“I never went anywhere, Sajid… you were the one who never came back.”
That sentence entered me like a crack within my soul.
That day I realized: love is not something you gain once and keep forever.
It is something you return to every day.
Something you see every day.
Something you listen to every day.
She is still the moon.
And me?
I have learned that being the sky is not enough,
you must also know how to preserve the light.
Otherwise, the moon does not fade away;
we simply become accustomed to the darkness ourselves.
Thank God it was not too late for me.
In the last hours of the night my throat had gone dry from restless thoughts.
I got up to drink water. As soon as I stepped out of the bedroom, the refrigerator stood in the TV lounge ahead.
While taking the final sip from the glass, my eyes lifted for a moment—
her mobile phone screen lit up for a few seconds…
…and then went dark again. I stood there for a few seconds…
and for the first time, I wondered if I had realized everything a little too late.
Moral of the story
The moral of the story is that love cannot survive on assumptions or past feelings; it needs continuous attention, appreciation, and emotional presence. When partners start taking each other for granted, silence and loneliness slowly replace affection, even within the same home. A relationship remains strong only when both people keep noticing, valuing, and returning to each other every day, because love that is not expressed eventually stops being felt. 💛
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