Men without women and without sense - I felt sad for a friend

For a long time now I have not been able to think of a woman leaving a man's life merely as a separation. Because when some women leave our lives, it is not only a person who goes missing. An order breaks down. A form of memory, a language, a habit, even some of the sentences a person builds about himself lose their meaning. A person does not notice this at first. At first he mostly hears the door closing. Then the silence inside the house. Then his hand hanging in the air as he reaches for the phone to tell something. Then, when he sees something beautiful somewhere and says "I must tell her this," remembering a few seconds later that there is no longer anyone to tell. The loss perhaps begins exactly here. Not in the absence of a person, but in that absence starting to change the small movements of life.

Sometimes the first sentence a man says when he loses a woman is "I loved her so much." This sentence always sounds a little strange to me. Not because it is wrong. Because it is incomplete. A person may truly have loved. But between having loved and having been able to see the existence of the person you loved there is a terrible distance. To love someone is not only to like their being in our life. It is to accept that they are a separate world. To see that they have a reality outside our own needs, fears, habits. Not to assume they consist only of their function in our life.

Maybe part of the tragedy in men's losing women lies here. They love the woman, but not the woman herself, they love the place she holds in their lives. It is very hard to tell the two apart. Because from outside the two look the same. When the woman comes home the man is happy. When the woman leaves the man is sad. At first glance it looks like love. But perhaps there is a more uncomfortable question to ask here: is the man missing the woman's existence, or the comfort she created in his life?

Because a woman sometimes does so much invisible work in a man's life that the man does not see any of it as labor. The woman knows when he has gone quiet. She notices the change in his voice when he talks to his mother. If he has an important meeting she wakes him in the morning. On her way home she buys what he likes. When he is ill she reminds him of his medicine. She understands why a sentence a friend said made him so angry. Over the years she learns a fear the man has not admitted even to himself. She knows which failure touches his pride, which word reaches something from his childhood, on which days he actually does not want to talk.

And the man assumes all of this is "just how it is."

I think this is one of a person's biggest mistakes: taking continuity for necessity.

When something has been in our life for a long time, we think its being there has no cost. We feel no gratitude to the sun because it rises every morning. As long as our health is fine, we do not think about the millions of things our body does. When a person has loved us for years, we forget that their love is a choice. We think not that they choose us again every day, but that they now have to.

Then one day the choosing ends.

That is when the man is astonished.

"How can this be?"

Perhaps this is one of the most bitter questions in life: How can this be?

How can a person put someone who has been by their side for years outside their life one day?

It can.

Because a person most of the time does not leave in a day. A person first leaves on the inside. For a while longer he carries his body next to you. He talks. He eats. He goes to work. He laughs. He has photos taken. He looks normal in front of people. But inside, something has long since come out of its place.

A woman sometimes leaves her relationship not on the day she breaks up, but on the day she has nothing left to tell.

That is why some men are genuinely astonished at a breakup. Because they think the relationship is still going. The woman, though, has used up the last hope inside the relationship.

The terrible side of this is: the woman has most of the time told the man this.

Not once.

Many times.

Maybe in very different forms.

"It hurts me when you talk like this."

"I feel lonely next to you."

"You are not paying attention to me."

"You do not listen to me."

"I am the one who thinks of everything."

"Things that are not important to you are important to me."

"If this goes on like this I will get tired."

The man has heard these.

But there is a difference between hearing and listening too.

Some sentences we take in with our ears and do not let into our lives.

A woman saying "I am lonely," for example. Because the man is in the same house, he may think this cannot be true. "How can you be lonely, I am right here." But loneliness is not a physical distance. It is possible to be next to a person and not be able to reach them. Perhaps this is even one of the strangest forms of loneliness a person can live: living without being understood next to the person who should know you most closely.

Two people can sleep in the same bed and there can be an abyss between them.

They can eat at the same table and never touch each other's lives.

They can say "I love you" to each other and still never see each other.

Because seeing is something other than looking.

To recognize a person's face is easy.

To notice the change inside them is hard.

I think the real test of love begins here.

How early does a person notice the change in the person they love?

The tiny change in her voice.

Her sentences getting shorter.

Her no longer telling what she used to tell.

Her becoming indifferent to plans to be made together.

Even her giving up fighting.

Because some men take the woman no longer fighting as the relationship getting better.

Yet sometimes a fight is the sign that there is still a demand inside.

A person struggles if they believe something can change.

After a certain point they do not struggle.

And a woman no longer trying to change you is a heavier sentence than you think.

Because it can mean she has lost her expectation of you.

Maybe this is the real death in relationships.

The death of expectation.

When a person starts expecting nothing from you, you can treat her as well as you like. Because your behavior no longer echoes in her as it used to. She does not applaud you. She does not punish you. She does not try to persuade you. She does not change you. Because she has stopped designing a future with you.

You do not need to be a philosopher to understand this.

But to not understand it, a person's ego needs to be strong enough.

Because the ego knows very well how to defend itself.

"I did a lot too."

"I never left her alone."

"I worked for my family."

"I did not cheat on her."

"I did everything she wanted."

Maybe you really did.

But isn't it a bit meaningless to make a list of what you did while trying to understand why a person could not love you?

Love is not an accounting ledger.

Ten kind things a person does for you do not erase one wrong you did to them. In the same way, ten kind things you did do not remove their loneliness.

Maybe one of the biggest injustices in human relationships is this: we know our own intention, but we only guess the effect on the person across from us.

"I did not want to upset her."

I believe this.

But you may have upset her.

The distance between a person's intention and the result of their action may be where morality begins.

Maybe that is why loving someone is not only a matter of good intention.

It is also a matter of observing yourself.

What kind of person am I turning into next to this person?

Am I lowering her voice?

Am I forcing her to explain herself?

Am I frightening her?

Am I making her smaller?

Am I making her lonely?

Or can she be more herself next to me?

I think one of the best ways of understanding a person's moral quality is not only looking at how they treat people they think are weaker than themselves. It is looking at how they treat someone who loves them, who is attached to them, and who they think will not leave.

Because showing kindness to strangers is easy.

Not abusing the patience of the person you love is harder.

You are polite next to a stranger.

But what you are at home, tired, angry, when nobody sees you, is more telling.

Maybe what we call character is exactly this.

What kind of person we are where nobody applauds.

And some men, after losing their women, see themselves there for the first time.

The woman is no longer there.

So there is nobody to blame either.

Alone in front of the story he can tell himself.

"She did not understand me."

"She changed."

"She was no longer the same."

Maybe.

But maybe after a while a person gets tired of these sentences.

Because it is impossible to approach the truth without seeing your own share in every story.

Maybe the woman changed.

But what did you do?

Maybe the woman drew away.

But what did you do to make her feel close to you?

Maybe she no longer loved you.

But for how long did you stand by as a spectator while her love was dying?

None of these questions has an easy answer.

If it were easy for a person to speak honestly with themselves, there would be no such thing as regret.

Isn't regret also a bit of meeting the person we were in the past while carrying what we know today?

I could have acted differently that day.

I might not have said that sentence.

That night I could have put the phone down and listened to her.

I could have cared about that small thing.

I could have noticed that look.

Just once I could have chosen not to be right but to understand her.

But I did not choose.

And now I know.

A person sometimes gains knowledge not at exactly the right time, but at exactly the time when they can no longer change anything.

Maybe this is one of the things we call tragedy.

Learning the truth but not being able to learn it at the right time.

Understanding a woman's worth after losing her is, in a way, the bitterest form of knowledge.

Because that knowledge may no longer be of any use.

The woman may not come back.

Even if she does, she may not be the same woman.

You may not be the same man either.

And some things are valuable only because they cannot be brought back.

A person learns this very late.

Like a cup of coffee going cold.

Like a house being emptied.

Like a child growing up.

Like someone's voice no longer calling you.

That life does not give some things back makes us understand their value afterward.

But here, besides the anger I feel toward men, there is also a compassion I feel toward people.

Because we all learn some things late.

We all fail to give some people the attention they deserve.

We all sometimes take the presence of the people we love for the natural order of our life.

We all can accept someone waiting for us as more natural than our waiting for them.

We all sometimes take a person's love for a feature of their character.

"That's just how she is."

No.

She is like that with you.

This distinction is very big.

A person does not have to be tender to everyone.

But if she is tender to you, you need to understand that this is something special in your life.

If she trusts you, you have to deserve it.

If she tells you about herself, you should carry that knowledge with care.

Because a person opening up to you does not give you power over her.

It gives you something entrusted to your care.

Maybe one of the biggest losses of women in their relationships with men is here.

The woman tells the man about herself.

Her fears.

Her past.

Her family.

Her weaknesses.

Sometimes her childhood.

The man knows all of this.

Then, when the balance of power in the relationship changes, things once told with love can turn into weapons.

Here the line between love and power becomes terrifyingly thin.

Knowing someone is not loving them.

Knowing someone also means knowing enough to be able to hurt them.

Morality perhaps begins right there.

Not using the other's weaknesses when you hold them in your hands.

Not hurting a person who is free enough to leave you because of the trust she has in you.

Because trust is in fact the biggest power a person holds.

And some men lose not the women's love but the women's trust in them.

I think the place where a relationship truly ends is also often here.

Love may stay for a while longer.

Longing may stay.

Memories may stay.

Even desire may stay.

But trust may not come back.

If a woman can no longer turn her back to you, something inside the relationship has died.

Because love is also a person being able to leave themselves defenseless.

"I think you will not hurt me."

This sentence is one of the greatest compliments that can be said in a relationship.

And at the same time one of the greatest responsibilities.

When you lose it, the person across from you may still love you.

But she can no longer leave herself to you.

This is what some men do not understand even years later.

"Does she still love me?"

Maybe.

But that is not the question.

"Can she trust me again?"

That is the real question.

Because love sometimes brings a person back.

Trust creates a reason for them to come back.

And some women do not come back anymore.

Not only because they have stopped loving their men.

But because they do not want to lose themselves again next to that man.

Maybe that is why, when I look at some men left without a woman, I think what they miss is not really a woman but the version of themselves loved by that woman.

When that woman was there they felt important.

Special.

Wanted.

Waited for.

Known.

Now that look is gone.

And a person sometimes loses themselves through another's eyes.

Maybe this is the whole point.

Losing a woman is sometimes something much bigger than losing her love.

It is losing a mirror that showed you to yourself.

But when the mirror breaks, our face does not change.

It only becomes harder to see ourselves.

Maybe that is why some men cannot come to themselves for a long time after losing their women.

Because for the first time they have to stay with themselves independent of the love that came from outside.

And there they meet something very uncomfortable:

Maybe truly being someone worth loving and someone loving you are not the same thing.

A woman may have loved you.

That does not prove you are a good man.

A woman may have left you.

That does not prove you are a bad man either.

But it leaves you a question.

What kind of person were you next to the person who loved you?

Maybe this is the most honest question a person can ask themselves.

Because in the end the woman goes.

The man remains.

The house remains.

The memories remain.

And all a person has left is the silence of their own behavior.

One day, in that silence, they may hear again a sentence said years ago:

"I do not ask much of you."

Maybe she really did not.

Maybe she only wanted to be seen.

Maybe to be listened to.

Maybe to be cared about.

Maybe to feel that she was a person, not a decor, in the life of the one she loved.

And then the man, at a very late time, may understand a very simple thing:

To lose a person you do not have to do them some great evil.

Sometimes it is enough not to see them for long enough.

Sometimes the reason for losing a person is not hatred.

It is carelessness.

Sometimes not betrayal.

Habit.

Sometimes not lack of love.

Not knowing how love is to be carried.

And maybe the bitterest thing is this:

A person learns to be a better person after losing some people.

But some people are no longer in your life to see you become a better person.

That is why some men really are stupid.

Not because they lost their women.

But because, while their women were beside them, they never thought of being a man from whom they would not have to leave.

Because the way to keep a woman beside you is not to hold on to her.

It is to be a person with whom she can stay freely.

And when you understand this one day, you have to accept that the door may already be closed.

Some doors in life are not opened with an apology.

Some only close.

A woman remains inside.

A man outside.

And the man, for the first time in his life, cries not because he lost her, but because he could not see her while she was there.