The Couch Wasn't the Problem

I left my husband over a couch.

Not literally, but close enough.

I wanted to catty-corner it in the living room—a small rebellion against the straight lines of our life. He said no. I unraveled.

That moment wasn’t about furniture. It was about invisibility. About rage. About menopause.

And it was the beginning of the end.

I didn’t recognize myself anymore.

I was hot all the time, inside and out. My skin felt like it didn’t fit. My thoughts were foggy, my moods volcanic. I was crying in the shower, snapping at strangers, forgetting words mid-sentence.

And I was seeking attention from every man but the one who had stood beside me for decades.

I started dressing for strangers.

Not dramatically—just a little extra mascara, a blouse that hugged me in the right places, lipstick I hadn’t worn in years.

I told myself it was self-care. But it wasn’t.

It was bait.

I lingered at the coffee shop, smiled too long at stangers who caught my eye. I laughed a little louder when the maintenance guy made a joke. I made eye contact with men who didn’t know my name—and didn’t need to.

I wasn’t looking for an affair. I wasn’t even looking for conversation.

I was looking for proof.

Proof that I was still visible. Still magnetic. Still alive.

My husband didn’t notice. Or maybe he did, and didn’t know what to do with it.

He’d stopped touching me. Not out of cruelty, but out of confusion. I had become unpredictable—sharp one moment, weepy the next. I was a storm system he couldn’t forecast.

On one hand I hated it on the another all I could think about was escape and I didnt know why.

I hated that I wanted attention from every man but the one who had memorized my laugh, who had been with me through good times and bad, who had held my hand at funerals.

But I couldn’t help it.

Menopause had rewired me. My hormones were hijacking my brain, my body, my boundaries.

I wanted to be wanted.

And I didn’t know how to ask for it without falling apart.

We used to talk.

About everything. About nothing. About what we’d make for dinner, or what the neighbor said, or how the dog was getting old.

But somewhere between the hot flashes and the slammed doors, the words dried up.

I’d sit across from him at dinner and feel like I was auditioning for a role I no longer wanted.

He’d ask how my day was, and I’d say “fine,” even when I’d cried in the car or screamed into a pillow.

I wanted him to ask again. To press. To notice.

But he didn’t.

And I didn’t know how to say, “I’m falling apart and I need you to hold the pieces.”

So I flirted with strangers.

I picked fights over furniture.

I made noise in all the wrong places, hoping he’d hear the silence I was drowning in.

He started sleeping on the edge of the bed. I started sleeping with my back to him.

We became polite.

And politeness, in a marriage, is a kind of death.

While he was out of town, I packed up my life in boxes.

I folded sweaters with trembling hands. I wrapped dishes in newspaper. I watched Under the Tuscan Sun on a loop, convincing myself that reinvention was just a plane ticket away.

I wanted to believe that leaving would restore something—my youth, my spark, my sense of possibility.

But I gained nothing.

I left a man who loved me. A man I had loved.

And I still don’t understand why.

Why didn’t I seek help? Why didn’t I scream for someone to pull me back from the edge?

I was bordering on insanity, but I would listen to no one.

I couldn’t see past the mirror, past the sagging skin and the sleepless nights and the fear that I was disappearing.

I thought I was chasing freedom.

But I was running from myself.

And in the process, I hurt someone with a good heart.

I ruined a life that had been built on love, on loyalty, on shared history.

And now, I will more than likely die alone.

And it all started with a couch.

If You’re Standing Where I Stood:

If you’re reading this and feel the fog creeping in—if you’re snapping at your partner, crying in secret, flirting with strangers just to feel seen—please, pause.

Menopause is not just a physical transition. It’s emotional, spiritual, existential. In some, as in my case, it can distort your thinking, magnify your fears, and make you believe that destruction is the only way to feel alive again.

But it’s not.

There is help. There is clarity. There is healing.

You don’t have to lose everything to find yourself.

You don’t have to rearrange your life to feel new.

Sometimes, you just need to rearrange the couch—and ask someone to sit beside you.