Miriam

The house sparrow was announcing that he possessed a nest, trying to attract females, while we sat across from each other in the shadow of the walls. She was silent, waiting for me to ask a question. Her neat fingernails were painted the same grey as her eyes. I didn’t know what to ask, so I waited too—for a question to appear in my mind.

“You said you were in a relationship for seven and a half years,” I began.
“Yeah. We met while studying in Mainz. Then he had to move to Stuttgart because he found a master’s program there, while I started an internship in Mainz. But after a year and a half, I moved to Stuttgart. We finished our studies and moved to a nearby city. We got married and bought a house. But I think it wasn’t really my wish—I always felt it wasn’t necessary. I was sceptical about it, but he wanted that. And I wanted to be with him. I loved him. So I married him, and we bought a house, adopted a dog, started planning to have children.”
The right corner of her lips quivered.
“But every step we made was his idea. And in the end, he was the one who wasn’t happy. He started questioning whether we should even have kids. It began in October last year, and I think by then he already knew he didn’t want that. He called it ‘the whole married life.’ He imagined it differently. And now he wants a break from it.
Do you need another pen?” she asked.

“No worries. I’m just trying to get the ink flowing—it’ll come. What was making you sceptical before the marriage?”
“I was in a bad mental state. I felt pressured—we’d invited all these people, and the pandemic made it harder. He’s from Colombia and didn’t have German citizenship, so we planned to get married in Denmark—it’s easier there. And he’s very different from me, culturally. And he’s an artist—expressive, open, emotional. I felt overwhelmed, like I didn’t want to make any big decisions. But we went through with it.”

“Was it a mistake?”
“I don’t think so. It felt right at the time. I got used to living in the country, and I loved having a dog. That made me sure I wanted to have kids with him. But for him, it was the opposite. I don’t know why. He said he didn’t feel free anymore, felt trapped by too much responsibility. He started questioning everything. I gave him time, but eventually I didn’t feel like he was trying to fix things. I felt like he didn’t want to spend time with me. I asked him many times to take a vacation together—with our dog. Yeah. At some point he said he couldn’t work on the relationship anymore. We did therapy twice, but he didn’t want to continue. He said he wasn’t in a hurry to decide or change anything. But I didn’t feel good in that limbo, so we decided we weren’t happy together. We broke up in January. Yeah.”

“What does love mean to you?”
“That I love spending time with someone. That I imagine a future together.”

“Did I understand correctly that your scepticism or uncertainty came from the pressure of commitment?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe? You loved him, even though you were different, and you envisioned a future with him. So I’m trying to understand—where did the uncertainty come from?”
“Maybe the differences were too big.”
“How do you know when it’s too big—and when it’s still within the normal range?”
“I don’t know. I think it came from the fights we had in daily life. But we were trying to improve our communication. I had a sense that we were working on the relationship, but I didn’t know if that would be enough to make us happy together in the long run. And I think it’s not good when you need your partner to change just to feel happy yourself. We talked about this after the breakup—that we’d both been trying to change each other for a long time. I think I already sensed that before the marriage.”

“Didn’t you notice the differences when you first met him?”
“Yes, but it felt exciting.”
“The same differences?”
“Some were the same. But others I only noticed later in daily life—like our values. For example, I’m vegan and he’s not. It wasn’t a big issue when we met, but when we moved in together, it was hard for me to see meat in the fridge. So he became vegan—for me. But later he went back to eating meat, because from the beginning he only did it for me. I didn’t understand that at the time—I didn’t want him to do it just for me.
There were other things too, like how we related to family and friends. I try to sustain long friendships, even over distance. But he’s not like that. He’s, like I said, emotional—and sometimes he fought with people. I didn’t like that. Sometimes it was colleagues, sometimes friends. He could start fights over things I didn’t think were important. He also didn’t feel good in Germany—he found the rules too strict, didn’t understand them, didn’t want to follow them, and that caused problems at work. I imagined that if we had kids, it would only make things more complicated.”

“And what does love mean to you?”
“Caring for each other. Accepting the other person without trying to change them. Being honest. Being there for one another. Wanting the best for them—even if that means breaking up.”

“Would you say you fell out of love with him?”
“Yes. I think we both did.”

“When was the last time you cried?”
“After the breakup. I cried every day for a week.”
“Were you crying because the shared future you had planned suddenly felt impossible?”
“Yes. I realised I needed a new aim in life—a new perspective on everything.”

*I prefer you to any future scenario