A Note Before You Begin:
Play "Impossible" by Shontelle as you read this. Let the melody guide you. Let it break you open.
A guy once called the station and told us a story.
Not just any story, but one I believe lives in the quiet corners of a man's soul long after love has gone.
It was about a man who had everything to give, and nothing left when she walked away. A story of heartbreak, not in the way we're used to hearing it, but from the side we're taught to ignore... The man's side.
That story changed something in me.
Because I realized his pain was not isolated. His voice was not unique. It echoed the silent ache of countless men who've loved deeply but never been given permission to grieve out loud.
We grow up believing men don't cry. That they "man up." That they "move on."
But what if I told you, sometimes, they don't?
This story shattered the way I see men. It made me understand that behind every hardened jaw and distant stare is perhaps, someone who once believed in forever and watched it burn.
So I'm sharing it with you now.
Not to glorify pain, but to name it. To let it breathe.
And maybe, just maybe…
to remind you that men break too.
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They say men don't cry.
They say we swallow grief like whiskey, burn it down and walk it off. That we move on quickly, find someone new or bury the old love in casual laughs and gym reps.
But they lied.
Because right now, I'm sitting in the middle of our apartment... my apartment now, I suppose, surrounded by the ghosts of things I cannot touch without falling apart. Her coffee mug, still chipped at the rim. Her bobby pins that keep showing up like tiny needles in my chest. The faintest scent of vanilla on the pillow she stopped sleeping on weeks before she left.
I thought I'd be the one to walk away first. God, how arrogant was I. How naive.
She left like a whisper. No slamming doors. No fights. Just a single suitcase and the kind of silence that says... This time, it's done. She didn't cry. Neither did I. But my throat burned for three days straight like I'd swallowed glass.
I keep replaying that morning in my head. She didn't even kiss me goodbye.
"Take care of yourself," was all she said.
Not I'll miss you, not This hurts me too or I wish I could stay. Just… take care. Like I was some stray dog she once loved but couldn't keep.
I remember standing by the door long after it clicked shut, barefoot on the cold floor, trying to breathe and failing miserably.
You don't understand until it happens to you. I hope you never know what it's like to love someone who stops choosing you. It's not sudden, It's slow. It's brushing her hair behind her ear and feeling her flinch. It's watching her smile at strangers in ways she hasn't smiled at you in months. It's the way she began saying "I" instead of "we."
Thats when I knew that the death of love isn't loud. It's barely audible, like a leak you ignore until the ceiling caves in.
I tried everything. Flowers on Thursdays, her favourite takeout when I knew she was tired. I even learned the names of her coworkers just to make conversation and I said I love you more than I ever did before, hoping repetition might reignite meaning.
It didn't.
She had started by sleeping on the edge of the bed. Then she stopped touching me. Then she stopped looking me in the eyes altogether.
Do you know what it does to a man to feel invisible in the home he built for two?
It's been months now. Everyone thinks I'm fine. I smile. I show up. I answer "of course, I'm alright" when they ask. But every night, I sit by the window with the lights off, letting memories bleed into the dark. I watch couples pass by, her laughter echoing in all their voices.
I kept her toothbrush for weeks. Couldn't throw it out. As if it held some magical tether to a time when she was still mine. Now it lies in the bottom of the bin under takeout boxes and shattered pieces of a life I don't recognize anymore.
I don't sleep much. My dreams are cruel. She's always there... laughing, calling my name, kissing my cheek or worse, shutting the door. Then I wake up to cold sheets and the kind of silence that presses down on your lungs.
I loved her. More than I knew I could love anyone. I wanted her mornings and her moods, her anger and her joy. I wanted forever with her. Not the filtered kind. The real kind, the messy, flawed, grow-old kind. I was ready to do the work.
But, she wasn't.
And you know what makes it worse?
I don't blame her.
I could feel it too, the distance, the slipping, the turning away. I just refused to believe that love alone wasn't enough. That wanting someone with every cell in your body doesn't mean they'll stay.
But I guess that's what no one tells you.
That sometimes, love is loud and still loses.
That sometimes, the person who breaks your heart is the one who once fixed it and allowed it to beat.
That sometimes, you can do everything right and still end up sleeping on one side of the bed, holding onto shadows.
And sometimes, a man breaks too.
Quietly, Completely and Utterly.
Hearts don't break clean. They shatter in silence, in the echo of unsaid things and unopened messages. And yes, even men cry. Sometimes not with tears, but with sleepless nights, with meals uneaten, with memories they'd trade the world to forget. So, If you're hurting too, know this: pain doesn't make you weak. It means you loved honestly. And that, above all, is brave.