This is not a true story, but a fictional piece inspired by things I’ve observed around me. Marriage is deep, and sometimes our thoughts wander into “what if” moments. This is one of them, and just me imagining how I might feel or react if something like this ever happened.
So let’s say I got married last year. It was beautiful, exciting, full of laughs and genuine connection. At least at first. You know that honeymoon phase everyone talks about? It was real. But fast forward one year later, and suddenly I’m sitting alone one night and realizing, I might have fallen out of love.
It sounds harsh. It sounds almost impossible. But that’s what I felt, or at least, that’s what this character is feeling. No butterflies, no spark, just the same routine, day in and day out. Conversations became dry. The excitement of coming home slowly died. The silence between us grew longer than the words we exchanged. It became clear that something had shifted.
At first, I tried to shake it off. Maybe I was tired. Maybe life was just stressful and it’s affecting how I see my partner. But the more I avoided it, the heavier it felt. So I had to face it even if just in thought. What do you do when you realise you’re not in love anymore, not even up to one year into your marriage?
The first thing i did was not to panic. You can’t fight feelings with noise. I took time to really understand what was going on. Was it truly love that had disappeared? Or were we just two people who stopped nurturing what we started?
I did a self check. Wrote down what I felt, what changed, and what I missed. Then, the character did the hard thing, talked to their partner. No blaming, no shouting. Just open conversation. It wasn’t easy. Nobody wants to hear “I don’t feel the same anymore.” But it had to be said.
Surprisingly, my partner had similar feelings. She were also confused, withdrawn, unsure how to bring it up. Both of us had stopped trying. We were just surviving the marriage, not enjoying it. That talk, painful as it was, opened the door to healing.
So we tried therapy. I know, it sounds cliche. But sometimes a third party helps you see what you can’t see alone. We talked through our issues, faced our unspoken expectations, and slowly began to reconnect, or at least understand each other again.
But I also made it clear in this story that not all situations have a happy ending. Even after trying, if the feeling doesn’t return and both people feel trapped or empty, it’s okay to part ways. That’s not failure, it’s growth. It’s knowing when something has run its course.
Staying in a marriage for the wrong reasons, society, shame, or fear, can do more damage than walking away. I imagined telling ourselves that it's okay to choose peace over pretense. That it’s better to end something than to live a lie every single day.
So yes, this story is fictional. But the emotions in it are real. So many people go through this silently and never speak up until it’s too late. That’s why I wrote this, to remind myself and others that love needs work. That communication is the oxygen of relationships. And that even when things fall apart, there’s still strength in honesty.
Writing this made me reflect deeply. Not esevery marriage will face this, but if one ever does, I hope honesty, effort and truth guide the way, whether the love is revived or released.
Thanks for reading my little story.
