He said the word “wife” like it gave him a key. Like it granted him unspoken access to every part of me, not because I offered it, but because he believed the title alone made it his. I didn’t feel chosen. I felt claimed.

That ring was never a symbol of devotion. It felt like a leash – tightening when I asked for rest, pulling when I asked for space. And every time I tried to name what was hurting, I was told that’s just what marriage is. That it’s supposed to be hard. That I should be lucky someone stayed.

But I wasn’t lucky. I was disappearing. Shrinking into the spaces he left for me, learning to carry my pain without making it his problem. When I cried, he called it drama. When I resisted, he called it betrayal. And when I finally spoke the truth, he called it disrespect.

What I lived through wasn’t love. It was control wrapped in ceremony. Possession disguised as protection. And for a long time, I tried to make peace with that. I tried to make myself smaller to fit the shape he wanted, to survive inside something that was slowly breaking me. But just because someone calls it love doesn’t make it safe. And just because they call you “wife” doesn’t mean they ever really saw you.