What I Found Tonight

For two years, my husband hasn’t touched me, not in the way husbands usually do. At first, I didn’t think much of it. Life gets busy. He worked long hours, and I tried to convince myself it was just a phase. I told myself: He’s stressed. I’m stressed. It happens in marriage. Things will get better.

But two years is a long time. Slowly, the distance became normal, like a quiet shadow that lingered between us. We talked about bills, groceries, and the usual day-to-day things, but something deeper was missing. It felt like we were roommates, not a married couple.

I tried to address it a few times. I’d ask him if everything was okay, but he would brush it off, saying he was tired or not in the mood. After a while, I stopped asking. Rejection hurts, especially when it comes from the person you love.

Tonight, I needed his phone. Mine had died, and I was waiting for a text from my sister. He handed it over without hesitation, and I didn’t think twice. As I scrolled to check for her message, I noticed something odd, a tab left open on Facebook.

Curiosity got the better of me. I clicked on it. What I saw made my chest tighten. His search history was full of adult entertainment posts, videos, photos, and profiles of women I didn’t recognize. Some were barely clothed, others were just suggestive.

At first, I just stared at the screen, unable to process what I was seeing. My first thought wasn’t anger, it was confusion. He had desires, so why wasn’t he coming to me? Why had he turned to strangers online instead of the person lying right next to him every night?

A wave of emotions hit me all at once: hurt, anger, sadness, and even guilt. I started asking myself questions I didn’t have answers to. Was I not enough for him? Did I do something wrong? Has he been unhappy this whole time, and I didn’t notice?

I thought about going to him right then. He was in the living room, scrolling through his phone like nothing had happened. Part of me wanted to confront him, to demand answers. But another part of me, maybe the more honest part was scared. What if his answers only made things worse? What if he told me something I wasn’t ready to hear?

So instead, I put his phone down and went to bed.

As I lay there staring at the ceiling, the weight of everything sank in. This wasn’t just about what I had seen on his phone. It wasn’t just about the two years without intimacy. It was about us, about how we got here, and whether we could find our way back.

I started replaying moments in my head. When did things start to change? Was it something I missed, or was this inevitable? I remembered the early days of our marriage. when everything felt effortless. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other back then. Even when life got busy, we always found time for each other.

But somewhere along the way, we stopped trying. Or maybe just he did. Or maybe it was both of us.

I couldn’t stop wondering about the women he’d been looking at online. Did they mean anything to him, or were they just an escape? Was it harmless curiosity, or a sign of something deeper? The not knowing was the hardest part.

As the hours passed, I realized I couldn’t avoid the truth forever. I needed to talk to him, not to accuse or attack, but to understand. If we had any chance of fixing this, we needed to face it together.

But even as I made that decision, doubt crept in. What if he didn’t want to fix it? What if the distance between us wasn’t something we could bridge? The thought terrified me.

By the time the sun started to rise, I still hadn’t found any answers. All I knew was that the silence between us couldn’t go on. Whether it brought us closer or tore us apart, the truth had to come out.

For now, though, I lay in bed, waiting for the courage to face it.