When someone dies, they take their secrets with them to the grave, but it doesn’t always play out that way. After her husband’s tragic and unexpected death, she went through his personal items, expecting to uncover small pieces of their love story.
Instead, she stumbled onto something far crueler: the truth he’d kept buried.
This woman, unfortunately, lost her 34-year-old husband two years ago following a car accident. They had been with one another for nearly ten years, and her husband was her favorite human being on this planet.
It’s taken her until a couple of weeks ago to muster up the courage to go through his belongings. While she was doing so, she uncovered three journals sitting in a storage bin.
“I sat down with a glass of wine, thinking I’d find sweet memories, doodles, or maybe plans for our future. Instead, it was page after page of resentment,” she explained.
“He wrote about how trapped he felt, how he regretted proposing to me, how he wanted to ‘run away and start over.’ He even mentioned someone at work he ‘felt something real’ for.”
“I feel like I’m grieving a stranger now. He was always kind, affectionate, and loving to me. He never once hinted at unhappiness. I thought we had a perfect marriage.”
She’s having a hard time looking at their wedding photos, since it makes her feel sick to her stomach. She feels like her husband allowed her to live a lie by his side.
It hurts her deeply that he clearly didn’t think their story was a love story, especially considering he was crushing on a coworker. Adding to all of this, she still misses him terribly, but she wishes she didn’t.
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Well, this is a great lesson to never put something hurtful about someone you love in writing, but that’s besides the point. I think she has to remind herself that what her husband wrote was clearly out of anger, but he wasn’t like that all the time, and when we feel upset, we often say things we don’t mean.
I don’t think I know any married couple who hasn’t hurt their spouse’s feelings on a long enough timeline, intentionally or not, but her husband was seeking a safe space to vent; he wasn’t trying to implode their marriage. Otherwise, he would have, right?
It might be cathartic for her to pour herself some more wine, start a little bonfire, and burn the books while she reminds herself to keep focusing on all of the amazing memories she did share with her husband.
What advice do you have for her?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
