I never loved my wife, and I told her that more than once. It wasn’t her fault; our life together was fairly comfortable.
My name is Antonio López, and I live in Salamanca, where Castilla y León carries its scars of history and grey days. I never loved my wife, Carmen, and more than once I threw that bitter truth at her. She didn’t deserve it—she never made a scene, never blamed me, always sweet, attentive, almost saintly. But my soul remained frozen, like the snow in the Sierra de Béjar in winter. There was no love, and it ate away at me from the inside.
Every morning I woke up with one thought: to leave. I dreamed of meeting a woman who would light a fire in me, someone I could breathe for. But fate played a cruel joke, turning everything upside down in a way I still haven’t recovered from. With Carmen, I felt comfortable, like sinking into an old armchair. She ran the house perfectly, her presence turned heads, and friends patted me on the back saying, “Where did you find a woman like that, lucky guy?” I didn’t even understand what I had done to deserve her devotion. An ordinary man, nothing special, and yet she loved me like I was her whole world. How was that possible?
Her love suffocated me. And worse was the thought that if I left, someone else would find her. Someone more successful, more handsome, wealthier—someone who would see what I couldn’t. When I imagined her in someone else’s arms, rage clouded my mind. She was mine, even if I never loved her. That sense of ownership was stronger than me, stronger than reason. But can you really live your whole life with someone your heart ignores? I thought I could, but I was wrong. There was a storm growing inside me that I could no longer contain.
“Tomorrow I’ll tell her everything,” I decided before going to sleep. In the morning, over breakfast, I gathered the courage I had. “Carmen, sit down, we need to talk,” I began, looking into her calm eyes. “Of course, dear, what is it?” she answered in her usual soft tone. “Imagine we got divorced. I leave, we live separately…” She laughed, as if I was joking. “What strange fantasies. Is this some kind of game?” “Listen, I’m serious,” I interrupted. “Alright, I’ll imagine. Then what?” she asked, still smiling. “Tell me honestly—would you find someone else if I left?” She froze. “Antonio, what’s going on with you? Why are you thinking about this?” There was a note of concern in her voice. “Because I don’t love you and never have,” I said, like a blow.
Carmen turned pale. “What? Are you joking? I don’t understand.” “I want to leave, but the idea of you being with someone else drives me crazy,” I admitted, my voice trembling. She was quiet for a moment, then said softly, with a sad kind of wisdom, “I won’t find anyone better than you, don’t worry. Go, I’ll stay alone.” “Promise?” I blurted out. “Of course,” she nodded, looking straight at me. “Wait… where am I supposed to go?” I got lost in the moment. “You don’t have anywhere to go?” she asked, surprised. “No, we’ve lived together our whole lives. I guess I’ll have to stay nearby,” I murmured, feeling the ground disappear beneath my feet. “Don’t worry,” Carmen replied. “After the divorce, we’ll split the apartment into two smaller ones.” “Really? I didn’t expect you to help me like that. Why?” I asked, stunned. “Because I love you. When you love someone, you don’t force them,” her words sounded like a final sentence.
Several months have passed. We got divorced. Then I heard rumors—Carmen had lied. She found someone else: tall, confident, with a warm smile. She never even considered splitting the apartment she inherited from her grandmother. I was left with nothing—no home, no family, no faith in people. Her betrayal felt like a knife in the back, and I still hear her voice in my mind: “I’ll stay alone.” A lie. A cold, calculated lie, and I believed it like a fool.
How can I trust women now? I don’t know. My life with her was comfortable, but empty, and now I don’t even have that. I sit in a rented room, staring at the wall, remembering that conversation. Her calm, her words—it was all a mask. My friends say, “You brought it on yourself, Antonio, what did you expect?” And they’re right. I didn’t love her, but I wanted to keep her as if she were mine. And she left me, leaving me in the loneliness I feared so much. Maybe this is my punishment—for the coldness, for the selfishness, for not valuing her heart. Now I’m alone, and the silence around me hurts more than her leaving ever did. What do I think of my actions? I don’t even know who the bigger fool is—me or her.