I used to tell myself that I was the victim in our story, that somehow I had been misunderstood, unfairly judged, and quietly abandoned without a chance to defend myself. When Elena left me three years ago, there was no dramatic argument, no plates thrown, no hysterical crying. She didn’t even raise her voice. She folded her clothes carefully into a single suitcase, moved slowly through our apartment as if she were visiting a place she no longer belonged to, and placed her wedding ring on the kitchen counter like a final punctuation mark.

Then she looked at me with eyes that were tired rather than angry and said, “I know about her.” That was all. No explanation, no accusations, no interrogation. Just a statement of fact. I laughed nervously at first, pretending it was ridiculous. I told her she was imagining things, that she was insecure, that she was letting her fears destroy something good. I even convinced myself that her refusal to argue meant she didn’t care enough to fight. When she walked out, I framed it in my mind as her weakness, not my betrayal. I told friends she had given up too easily.