A Love Unseen: The Weight of Secrets and the Price of Feeling Alive

 

She used to think love meant being seen. Not just in the obvious ways, but in the small, quiet ones—the lingering glances, the way someone notices when you change your hair, or the simple act of choosing to watch you instead of pixels on a screen.

But somewhere along the way, she had faded into the background. Her husband wasn’t a bad man, just… distracted, absorbed in his own world of fantasy. It wasn’t that he didn’t love her, but the way he looked at his screen with fascination had long outshined any way he looked at her.

So she found someone else, someone who made her feel vivid again. It wasn’t love, not even close, but it was attention, passion, a spark she had been chasing for far too long. It felt intoxicating at first—the thrill of stolen moments, the rush of being desired. But desire is fleeting, and secrets are heavy.

She ended it. Not because she was caught, not because she wanted to confess—but because in the end, she still wanted her life, her marriage. And oddly enough, something shifted when she came back. Maybe her absence, even if unnoticed, had unsettled things just enough to make her husband look up. To really see her again.

They’re in a better place now. Things are good. But she still carries it—the weight, the guilt, the quiet knowledge of the thing she did to feel worthy again. Some scars don’t fade, even when no one else knows they exist.