I sleep next to my husband every night, but most of the time it feels like we’re just two strangers sharing the same bed because the rent is expensive.

From the outside, our life looks fine. We have a small apartment, a warm lamp on the bedside table, some cute family photos lined up above our bed. On Facebook we still smile in pictures. People comment “couple goals” and “you two are so lucky.” If only they could see us when the camera is off.

Most nights look like this: he lies on his side of the bed, phone in his hand, scrolling through whatever is more interesting than me. I sit on the edge of the mattress, staring at the window, pretending to watch the rain. Sometimes I feel like a ghost haunting my own life.

I wasn’t always like this. I used to believe love could fix anything. I cooked his favorite meals, sent long texts, apologized even when I wasn’t wrong, tried to be “understanding.” I told myself, “Marriage is hard. Everyone fights. If I’m patient enough, he’ll change.”

But the more I tried, the more invisible I felt. Our conversations shrank to “Have you paid the bill?”, “What’s for dinner?”, “Where are the kids’ shoes?” The little “How are you really?” disappeared. The hugs disappeared. The way he used to look at me like I was the only person in the room completely disappeared.

One night, after a stupid argument about absolutely nothing, the silence in our bedroom felt so loud that I couldn’t breathe. He turned his back, picked up his phone again, and that was it. No sorry, no “are you okay?”, nothing.

I sat there on the edge of the bed, hands gripping the blanket, and the only thing in my head was: Why me? Why am I still here? I could almost see my own life from above: a woman in her thirties, eyes swollen, sitting next to a man who was there physically but gone in every other way.

Everyone says, “If you’re unhappy, just leave.” It sounds so simple when it’s not your house, your history, your kids, your memories. I had packed my bags in my head a thousand times. But every time I imagined actually walking out the door, something heavy pulled me back. It wasn’t love anymore. It felt like a debt I couldn’t finish paying.

A few days after that night, I wandered into a small temple near my office. Not because I suddenly became super religious, but because I literally had nowhere else to go with my feelings. I sat in the back, eyes still puffy, while a monk was giving a talk about relationships and karma.

He said something like: “The person you marry is not random. Maybe they are a blessing. Maybe they are an old enemy. Maybe they come back so you can learn, repay, or finally let go.”

I felt like someone had punched me in the chest.

What if my husband wasn’t just “the wrong person”? What if he was a mirror? What if this cold, painful marriage was showing me all the hurts I never healed—my fear of being abandoned, my habit of staying silent, my obsession with fixing everyone except myself?

Slowly, I stopped asking, “Why does he hurt me like this?” and started asking, “What is this trying to teach me?”

I began to notice his wounds too. A childhood where nobody said “I love you,” a father who expressed love only by criticizing, a family where men never apologized. Not as an excuse, but as context. The truth is, he’s also stuck. He doesn’t know how to love any better than this.

Since then, I’ve been practicing two things that sound simple but feel like war inside my chest:
Compassion for him.
Boundaries for myself.

Compassion means I try to see his pain instead of only my own. It means I don’t scream just to hurt back, even when I’m bleeding inside.

Boundaries mean I don’t swallow everything anymore. I say “No” when something crosses the line. I tell him, calmly, “This hurts me,” instead of silently collecting resentment like stamps. I choose myself too.

Will this magically fix our marriage? I don’t know. I’m not writing this from a fairytale ending. We still argue. We still have cold nights. I still cry sometimes on the edge of the bed.

But something is different now: I know I have a choice.

If I stay, it will be because I can still grow here, not because I’m afraid of being alone. If I leave one day, it will be because the lesson is complete, not because I want revenge.

So here I am, sharing this with a bunch of strangers on the internet, because maybe someone reading this is also sitting on the edge of their bed at 2 a.m., asking “Why me?”

Tell me honestly:
If you were in my place, would you stay and try to transform this marriage, or would you walk away and finally set both of us free? 💔