Chapter 1
Raphael
"Raphael, we need to talk," Eliana says while she plops herself beside my tired body on the couch, still with a good three-feet distance between us.
My eyes briefly leave the TV screen to meet hers and then shift back to the TV.
"What's it?" I ask nonchalantly while stretching my interlocked hands above my head and letting out a tired yawn.
I already know that it's about money.
"Ariel's ballet recital is in two weeks from now, and we haven't yet paid for the costumes and other stuff. The deadline is in a week," she informs me and reaches out for the remote control.
Clicking my tongue in frustration, I quickly snatch the remote control that lays in the space between us on the couch.
"How much do you think a man can support? I pay for her schooling, her ballet classes and piano classes, I bear all the household expenses, plus the housing loan and the personal loan and every other unforeseen expense that comes up ever. Isn't it unfair?" The tone of my voice gives away the frustration that's boiling within me.
This isn't even the first time that this kind of a conversation which usually leads up to an argument has come up between the two of us. And it's pretty much everything that we talk about or more like fight about these days.
Eliana and I have been married for seven years now, and we had dated for over a year before we got married. We were blessed with our daughter, Ariel, even before we could reach our first wedding anniversary. Ariel wasn't planned, and I never considered her a mistake, and although we weren't fully prepared to be parents, Eliana and I decided to do it.
She exhales her frustration and flails her arms in the air and speaks with animated hand movements.
"Raphael, please! Not again. Why do you keep pointing out what you spend for our family? Am I demanding you to pay to buy stuff for myself like many other women do? I know you can't afford that for the heck of it! I have just taken up this new job, and I know it doesn't pay much, but with my six-year career break, what else do you think I can do at this point? I've just restarted, and I'll catc-"
I wave my hand at her to stop talking.
"This topic is so boring. Please. I'll transfer the money to your account tomorrow," ending the discussion, I turn off the TV and head straight to our bedroom and into the bathroom, mainly to escape her presence and conceal my disappointment.
Standing with my hands resting on the sink counter, I look at my reflection in the mirror.
She's doing it again.
She's trying to make me feel inadequate that I'm not making enough money.
The worst pain is looking at your own teary reflection in the mirror and feeling like a total failure, and it's even worse if someone else is making you feel that way.
Fuck my life! What am I still doing in this marriage?
I splash a few handfuls of cold water on my face, hoping to wash away the failure plastered on my face, and then step out of the bathroom.
Unaware of my mental torment, Eliana, my wife, sleeps peacefully in her corner, turned away from my side.
There were days in the past when we wouldn't miss a chance to cuddle up in bed, when we would skip work to pepper our days with nights and our unending nights with some breathing breaks. There were those days where we used to talk and listen to each other. There were days where we would make love through the night and still crave for more.
Where are those days? They seem to have magically vanished into thin air, and even the memories of those days seem to be slowly fading out from my heart and mind.
I wonder if she ever feels the same as she used to.
But do I ever feel the same as I used to? Is the spark in our marriage gone forever? Are we falling out of love?
The only thing we ever do these days is to fight over everything under the sun.
I slide into bed and bury myself inside the duvet. Eliana has covered herself over her head with the duvet, pretending to sleep. But I'm pretty sure she's just busily scrolling through stuff on her phone.
I know I should get some sleep, but my sleep seems long forgotten. I'm just not able to fall asleep, and there's not one particular reason that I could put my finger on as the cause for my sleeplessness.
Again, my insomniac depressed mind is throwing at me the most unnecessary questions at the most ungodly hour. I try to shake it off and try to get some sleep, but it seems impossible to reach.
I think back to the days when I had trouble falling asleep in the past, and just getting some skin contact with Eliana and inhaling her scent that felt like home was more than enough to tranquilize my senses and put me to sleep.
It's been ages since we made love, and I can't believe it that I haven't laid a finger on my wife or any other woman for about two years now. Every time, I have to help myself, and it is frustrating to say the least.
It was there, the spark, the magic—it was all there.
I would text her horny and dirty pickup lines and leave little love notes inside her purse or send her sexy selfies of myself and keep her waiting impatiently until I get back home so that she could have me all to herself.
I was a passionate lover. I loved her with every fiber in my being, and she too loved me with her everything. We were crazily, madly in love. But it seems like an eternity ago.
I'm still capable of being that passionate lover that I once was, but not when she doesn't even value my emotions.
We're at a point where she doesn't wear her wedding ring anymore, and I don't too, on most days, and it doesn't bother us even to a small extent. If this isn't the biggest red flag for a crumbling marriage, then I don't know what else is.
Tears pooling in my eyes, I roll over to face the window and struggle to fall asleep.
I hate it that I feel so weak and answerable. I hate it when she makes me feel small and unworthy, and the worst part of it is I hate myself for not having the confidence to walk out of this hopeless marriage and start a life on my own. I could, but she would definitely take away Ariel with her, and how would I survive without my daughter?
In a way, I'm selfish being in this relationship. Is it so? Is it selfish to survive this marriage only for my daughter? Is it selfish to expect Eliana to chip in with the family's finances when I'm fully ready to equally share the other responsibilities as well?
I know I could be more, and I'm really trying to get there, but Eliana ridiculing my efforts as if it's nothing only drags down my confidence every single time.
I understand that she has her own frustrations and stress, but is that a valid reason to be blind to my emotions and needs and invalidate my efforts to survive our family? The way she keeps telling me that my earnings are insufficient is like rubbing rock salt on my bleeding wounds. It hurts like hell.
Financially, I feel inadequate because I'm not able to provide in abundance for my wife to live the lavish life she desires to live. My money only pays the bills and brings food to the table. I feel so bad.
Mentally, I feel my emotions weighing me down all the time. I feel depressed and sad most of the times, and insomnia is something that I'm learning to live with. I don't have great expectations. I just expect to feel reassured that I'm doing just fine, even though I know I could be so much more.
Hearing some positive words will make me try harder to be that man that I really want to be. Hearing nothing only makes my whole world seem so plain. And even worse, hearing things that drag me down makes my entire existence seem useless.
I want to feel appreciated. I want to feel loved. I want to feel worthy. As a full-grown adult man, I know fully well that I should probably be keeping myself motivated at all times, or at least that's what the world expects from me. But I want to scream out that it's just not possible. I am still a human who needs to feel secure, reassured and loved. Is it too much to ask for?
At this point, living life seems like a chore—a chore that I'm tired of doing alone. I'm sick and tired of trying to live up to what everyone expects of me. I have my dreams and desires and wants and needs. Yet I feel tied down by so many invisible strings that I'm unable to free myself from.
Work is hectic, providing everything for a family and being a responsible adult and acting mature at all times is tortuous. Eliana contributes nothing to the finances, and with a single person's earnings, it is impossible to save a penny for our daughter's future.
Future—the very thought of it scares me. I haven't been saving up anything for Ariel's future, nothing for her college, nothing to raise her as luxurious as I wish to raise her up, nothing more than the basics we provide to her which includes just shelter, food, clothing and education.
The exorbitant fees that I pay for the extra-curricular classes are such a tight squeeze into my meager budget, yet I have consciously chosen to give up some simple pleasures in life like buying myself a nice shirt on pay day or getting a drink at an elite bar—only for the sake of paying the fees for Ariel's ballet and piano classes.
I hate it that there's no support from my wife, who also thinks that I crib about paying the fees because I spend money on stuff for myself. But the truth is I'm shrinking myself to fit into the shoes of the responsible family man, and I'm failing miserably, and it terribly scares me.
My job, though it is something that I love doing, doesn't pay me as much as it should be paying someone with my experience and knowledge. But finding a new job isn't so easy as well, especially when the experience level is above ten years. Yet, I'm always on the lookout for a better paying job.
I hate living the mediocre, middle-class man's life, and I really wish I had incurred some wealth from my parents or grandparents, or at least married someone from a stinky rich family like my friend Sebastian did.
Well, I did love Eliana, in fact, I was head over heels in love with her. My love for her blinded everything else about her and put me in a state of trance that I wanted nothing but to marry her and have her by my side all the time. She has always been a strong-headed woman—the attitude that I once loved about her—and now it irritates me.
She doesn't want to find a job for herself, quoting excuses like she has a six-year long break, but in reality, I don't even think she's trying. She does a small, part-time desk job at home, and it pays her, (how much? I have no idea!) but still it hasn't made any difference to the way my finances are deployed.
Eliana is always sulking about how Ariel talks back and argues with her over silly things, which I'm sure she picked up from her mother because she spends all the time with her at home when she's not attending school.
Honestly, we rarely to talk to each other these days because the things we want to talk about are polar opposites. She wants to talk about her day and the recipes she wants to try while I want to talk about my work. Her topic doesn't keep me interested for more than a few seconds and when I'm talking, she's almost always doing the dishes or cleaning something and humming carelessly.
We exist under the same roof as parents to our daughter.
The Eliana that I once loved, the woman who would sit for hours together and listen to what I would talk, and look at me with heart eyes is long gone. In her eyes, all that I see now is tiredness which I have no idea why.
She complains that she's sleepy and tired during the day, when at night she spends hours together scrolling through something on her phone, and if I question that then I'm labeled as being inconsiderate of her personal time and space. So when I refrain from asking her about anything, then I get called as inattentive and blind to her needs and the changes in her.
Seriously, what is a man supposed to do?
I am utterly confused.
Even though we haven't had sex in a few years, I do strongly feel that at least some physical contact between us could make space for us to talk and bond over something, and, come on, I also do have my needs. But it looks like my wife has turned into an asexual being who doesn't want any form of sex anymore.
How is that even possible?
I can shamelessly admit it that I do get turned on by her many times, but she senses it faster than me, maybe because I keep staring at her and making some provocative moves without even realizing it, and the next moment she either gets her period or she feels dead. It's absolutely frustrating.
Where have we done wrong? When did things start falling apart like this?