The first time my wife cried in front of me, I cried too. It just happened. Her pain moved straight into me and I couldn’t stop it. I still don’t know what she thought about that. Maybe she needed me to stay steady while she fell apart. I never asked her. I think I was simply too afraid of creating more rift between us if I asked the wrong question.
I’m the kind of person who would happily pass their life jacket to someone else, even if I’m the one drowning. That same empathetic part inside me, the way I put other people’s feelings before my own, is also why I didn’t fight when she decided we should part ways. I just accepted it. I couldn’t bring myself to turn it into some big battle. It felt wrong somehow. So I let it go.
Even though deep down I felt it was unfair. It was always her decision in the end, and I was simply expected to accept it. We never got a proper conversation face to face in our own space. Everything important was always supposed to happen in the presence of relatives. That’s no way for two adults to handle something so personal and painful. Its not fair, and will never be fair.
The worst part came later, during the court proceedings. It sounds like a scene from a cliche movie, but it actually happened. I must have looked pretty bad sitting there during one of the breaks in the court. This man I had never seen before walked up to me. He said I looked lonely. Then he told me his wife had died in an accident and that he understood how it feels. Then, almost gently with a fear whether I would raise my voice, he asked “can’t you just talk and sort things out between the both of you?”.
I knew right away what he was doing. He was trying to help us fix what he never got the chance to fix with his own wife. That thought hit me so hard I started crying right there in the middle of everything. Like a child. I couldn’t control it. Those words are still sitting with me even now. But there was nothing I could do. My hands were tied. I couldn’t go back and talk to her. I couldn’t make any move unless she wants it. Nothing was going to change just because I felt it.
I keep thinking about that sometimes. How this thing inside me that makes me feel for other people so strongly also leaves me with no real power when it matters.
When I was a child, maybe from first grade if I recall, people started calling me pavam. In Malayalam it means something like “poor thing” or too soft for your own good. Once that tag stuck, a lot of kids figured out they could take advantage of it. I would share whatever I had. I took the blame when it was easier for them. I didn’t push back. It took me some time to understand that being seen that way made me useful to everyone except myself.
After a while I got tired of it, I hated when people said good things about me. I changed. I started picking fights over nothing. Got into trouble on purpose. Became the kind of person other people were careful around. I went from sitting on the first bench to the last bench. The pavam label disappeared almost instantly. Suddenly I had space. People left me alone or even gave me respect, the kind that comes from fear. It wasn’t something which I was proud of, but it worked.
But as I got older and matured, I couldn’t keep the tough guy act going. The fights and the image started feeling hollow and wrong in many ways. I had picked up some bad habits along the way, but deep down I was still that same empathetic kid who felt for other peoples emotion too much, and not my own. I couldn’t pretend anymore. So slowly the armour cracked.
Even after that, I never really changed how I treated myself. I never expected anything from others. When I bought clothes for myself I would compare prices for hours, something I would never do if it was for someone I cared about. Taking care of myself was always the last thing on the list, and it never got done. I told myself it didn’t matter.
For a long time I thought this way of feeling everything was just who I was. Maybe even a good thing. But the older I got, the more I saw that the world doesn’t really make space for it. People like the parts that are useful to them, the listening, the showing up, the carrying of their problems. But when you need something back, or when you show your own cracks, it gets uncomfortable fast. They don’t know what to do with it. Sometimes they pull away. Sometimes they act like you broke some unspoken rule by not staying strong all the time.
I saw it with friends. I saw it at work. And I felt it most clearly when my marriage ended. The same thing that let me feel her pain also made it impossible for me to fight for what I wanted. I could only accept. And in that courtroom, when that stranger spoke to me like I was a real person who might still have a chance, all I could do was cry because I knew it wasn’t in my hands. It wasn’t about ego or control or deciding to let go. The outcome simply wasn’t mine to decide.
There are moments where I didn’t like her at all. She could be so cold, seemingly completely blind to the heavy impact her words and actions carried. It was as if she couldn’t read the emotional damage she was causing me right in front of her, making me feel worthless, like I was someone who could be replaced without a second thought. And yet, she still expected me to fix everything and make all the amends. It burns.
I want to be angry at her, but I can’t hold onto that anger inside me. That kid from first grade won’t let me. He still understands her. He still stands for her and wants to be there for her in every possible way. He knew deep down how much it hurt her to feel blamed, to feel like she was always the one at fault, to carry that heavy fear that she was too much or not enough. The idiot in him actually believes that if he just keeps trying, if he keeps giving, maybe they could stay happy. He believed there’s something more in this world than just material stuff, that people could actually understand each other better and grow together if they tried.
Maybe that boy never really belonged in this world. Sometimes I think it would have been easier if he had never existed at all. He was always hoping for a deeper kind of love than what most people are willing to give.
I don’t think I’m perfect, and I had my flaws which she had to deal. I’m really not trying to paint myself as some flawless Mr. Nice Guy here. I realize that by constantly stepping in to absorb the impact all by myself, just to keep the peace, I might have accidentally made things worse. I thought I was protecting her. But sometimes, trying to over-protect a relationship isn’t always the way forward.
Sometimes I wished the psychologist we saw had been able to guide both of us, and parents through the hard truths of our situation together. I wanted it to be a shared journey. But they didn’t. They saw I could take the hit, so they handed me the hard truths about our situation that I couldn’t ever share. Instead, I found myself carrying the weight of those insights alone. They believed that protecting her was the right thing to do, even though it ended up isolating me completely
I tried talking to her about the things that needed work, hoping she would at least agree on something we could start with, before I could address what they have actually said. I hoped there would be an understanding and that we could grow together if we tried. But it never really landed the way I hoped. It was never about pointing fingers at anyone. It was more about us understanding each other better.
I still wished she had said something like “I understand you or I’ll try, but let’s fight this together.” As, it was never about proving her wrong or putting her in her place. It was never about dominating or winning some argument. It was only about being there for each other and fight for what we had.
It’s the same empathy that held me back, the same boy from first grade who understood her so deeply of her struggle. But that boy kept hoping she would hold on to his imperfections too, and say “stay”.
I don’t think most people are hurtful on purpose. I think a lot of us are just running on empty, and when someone keeps giving without asking for much in return, it becomes easy to keep taking. The ones who stay soft get used to it. And when they finally show they’re hurting too, nobody knows how to hold it.
Those words from the stranger still stay with me. A part of me is grateful someone saw the loneliness. Another part of me wonders why the only person who offered to help fix something was someone who had already lost his own chance. I’ve never really seen someone who has gone through loss themselves tell another person to just walk away and that they deserve better. It’s usually the people who have never felt that kind of pain who say things like that ie even the ones closest to you. The ones who have lost something seem more willing to try and help fix what’s broken instead.
Sometimes I wonder if she will ever truly understand me. Even though I could see how much pain she carried inside, I still chose to keep trying, not because I wanted to fix her. It is because I saw who she really was underneath all that heavy armor. I knew she only wore it because she was terrified of getting hurt. I saw how exhausting it was for her to constantly protect herself. I accepted the person hiding behind walls, even on the hardest days, and her struggles were never going to scare me away. That was what I was fighting for. But I couldn’t keep fighting alone. I desperately needed her to acknowledge my feelings too, to see the toll it was taking on me. But I was never good for her in her eyes. I found myself constantly walking on eggshells, carefully choosing my words because I never knew what might accidentally hurt her more. All I ever wanted was to help her feel safe in the relationship. I would still do it without any hesitation only if we could work on things together as a team. I know how painful and confusing it can be when emotions feel overwhelming and everything inside feels unstable. I still hope that one day she might understand that her pain was never just hers, it became mine too.
A lot of people like to think that if something is meant to be, it’ll work out on its own. That if you just wait and stay patient, things will somehow sort themselves out, or some higher power from the sky will eventually step in and fix it. I don’t really believe that. Relationships don’t fix themselves just because we hope they will. I have realized that we can’t force someone to see the best in us if they aren’t ready to, no matter what we do. But it is just as naive to think that the people who do care about us will accept our every flaw without us having to try. A real relationship requires both people to actually show up and do the work.
What hurt me most was finding myself locked out of our own relationship, having to rely on family to bridge the gap just so my feelings could be understood. When the focus became all about external conflicts and who else needed to apologize, my own pain became invisible. Those apologies should have been secondary. Fixing things with outside people doesn’t fix us. I just needed my partner to look at me, see the toll of what was happening to me, and just hold space for my feelings.
People might wonder why, if I feel this way, I don’t just reach out and ask her to try again. The honest truth is, I’ve lost the confidence to do it. When you reach out to her and it’s all silence and nothing comes back, you eventually start to doubt if you are even welcome to speak at all. I was always worried that reaching out would cross her boundary where I’m not allowed, or push her further away.
I accepted all this distance because it wasn’t my choice to make. But my heart never really put a full stop to it, a story written by two people can’t really be finished by just one. The page is just sitting there, half-written. We can’t undo the hard chapters, I know that. But if she ever felt like picking up a pen and trying for a different ending with me, a real one, where we actually work as a team, I’d still be right here. Ready to turn the page, because it’s never too late to keep writing.
I’m still figuring out what to do with this part of me. How to keep feeling things without letting it empty me out completely. How to protect the soft kid without pretending he doesn’t exist anymore. Some days I think I’ve learned. Other days I’m not so sure.
But I know one thing now. Feeling empathetic doesn’t give you any power to change what other people decide. It only leaves that imperfect boy still sitting there with his hands tied, hoping she might still say “stay.”
NOTE:
This is a personal reflection written as part of processing my own grief and experiences. It is not intended to harm anyone or assign blame. The post explores the weight of deep empathy from my perspective only. If it resonates with your own story, you’re not alone.