I’m Maggie, 32, married to Jason for four years, and for a long time, I told myself that love could survive almost anything if two people were willing to work hard enough.
Lately, though, my marriage felt like a room with no air in it.
Jason had been acting off for months. He was distant in a way that made me feel lonelier than if we had been fighting.
He answered my questions with half-sentences and kept his phone turned face down. Some nights, he came home late and said work had run over. Other nights, he sat beside me on the couch and felt a thousand miles away.
I told myself it was the stress.
We had been trying to have a child for almost three years, and every failed test, every quiet doctor visit, every hopeful month that ended the same way had carved out something raw inside both of us.
I thought maybe this was what a rough patch looked like when grief did not have a funeral and disappointment did not have a name.