I used to think love was the whole answer. If a man came home every evening, kissed your forehead, remembered how you took your tea, and stood beside you at funerals and weddings without needing to be asked, then surely you were safe. My husband, Ciarán, did all of that. He loved me in the practical Dublin way: fixing the boiler before winter, carrying the heavy bags from Tesco, texting me when the Luas was delayed so I would not worry. For twelve years, I believed that was enough.
We lived in a small red-brick terrace near Stoneybatter, close enough to hear the city breathing at night. On Saturdays we walked through the Phoenix Park, bought coffee near Smithfield, and sometimes had a pint in The Cobblestone if there was music on. People called us solid. My sister once said, “You two are the calmest couple I know.” I was proud of that. Calm felt like success.
Then one Thursday in November, I saw a message light up on his phone while he was in the shower. I was not snooping. I had been clearing the dinner plates, and the phone was on the kitchen table beside a half-finished glass of water. The message said, “I wish we’d met earlier.” No name I recognised, just an initial. My hands went cold before my mind understood why.
I did not confront him that night. I watched him come downstairs in his old grey hoodie, hair wet, smiling at me as if nothing in the world had shifted. He asked if I wanted the last slice of brown bread. He put the kettle on. He sat beside me on the couch and rubbed my feet while the news played. That was the cruelest part. He was still tender. He was still himself.
For three days I carried the knowledge around like a stone in my coat pocket. I became strangely observant. The way he checked his phone when he thought I was looking out the window. The small softness in his face after certain messages. The guilt that came over him when he looked at me too long. On Sunday morning, after Mass bells from the church drifted down the street, I asked him who she was.
He did not lie. I almost wished he had, because then I could have been angry in a simpler way. He sat at the kitchen table and covered his face with both hands. Her name was Maeve. She worked with him near Grand Canal Dock. Nothing physical had happened, he said, and I believed him. But he loved talking to her. He waited for her messages. He imagined another life with her, one where he was younger, braver, less tired. Then he looked at me and said the sentence that broke me more than any confession could have: “I love you. I just desire her.”
There are words that make a room too small. I remember the hum of the fridge, a bus sighing outside, the smell of toast burning because neither of us moved to take it out. I asked him if he wanted to leave. He said no. I asked him if he wanted her. He said yes, and then he cried like I had never seen him cry, not even when his father died. He said he hated himself for it. He said he did not know how to stop wanting something that made him feel alive.
For a while, I became obsessed with measuring myself against a woman I had never met. Was she prettier, funnier, freer? Did she wear perfume? Did she know the version of him who sang badly in the shower and got anxious before dental appointments? Did she know he could not sleep unless the wardrobe door was fully closed? I walked one evening along the Liffey from Heuston toward town, thinking about how humiliating it was to be loved and still not chosen completely.
We tried counselling in Rathmines. We tried rules. No messages. No private lunches. Full honesty. He agreed to everything with a desperation that should have comforted me, but desire does not disappear just because it is inconvenient. It leaked out of him in silences. I could feel when he was missing her. I could feel when staying with me was an act of loyalty rather than longing. And slowly, painfully, I realised loyalty without desire can become another kind of abandonment.
The end came in January, on a wet evening outside St Stephen’s Green. We had gone for a walk after another counselling session. The trees were black against the sky, and the paths shone under the lamps. He was talking about booking a weekend away, somewhere on the west coast, as if scenery might rescue us. I stopped near the gate and told him I could not keep living as the good choice. I did not want to be the woman he stayed with because he was decent. I wanted to be wanted without negotiation.</p
Note: Please be aware that these are written in confidentiality and there is not reference or mention of any real people and their sentiments here. Every incident and Story tends to be emotional so please read at your own emotional risk. Website is not responsible for anything related. HumansofDublin.io is not related to the photography project HumansofDublin by Peter Varga
