I used to think love was the way he waited for me outside Connolly Station with two coffees, one already gone cold because my train from Maynooth was late again. It was the way he knew I hated crowds but still coaxed me down to Temple Bar on a rainy Friday, promising we would only stay for one drink and then leave before the hen parties found their voices. It was the way he held my hand crossing O’Connell Bridge, like Dublin traffic was a personal enemy he had sworn to protect me from.
We were together nearly two years before we moved in. Everyone said it was the natural next step. Rent was madness, his lease in Rathmines was ending, and my room in Drumcondra had mould blooming behind the wardrobe like a small, damp garden. We found a one-bed flat off Camden Street, above a takeaway that made the whole hallway smell of chips and vinegar. It had uneven floors, a shower that took ten minutes to warm, and a tiny balcony where you could just about fit two people if one of them breathed in. I thought it was perfect because it was ours.
The first week felt like playing house. We bought plates from a charity shop on George’s Street and argued sweetly over whether a duvet cover should be plain or patterned. We had breakfast on the floor because the table had not arrived. He made spaghetti and splashed sauce on the wall, and I laughed because I thought mess was intimacy. I thought seeing someone’s socks under the chair and their toothbrush beside yours meant you had arrived at the safe part of love.
Then the small things started gathering weight. He was charming everywhere except at home. In pubs, he was the man who remembered the bartender’s name. With my friends, he asked questions and made them feel seen. But in the flat, he would come in and drop into silence like a stone into a well. If I asked how his day was, he’d say, “Fine,” without looking up. If I told him about mine, he’d scroll through his phone, smiling at something that wasn’t me.
At first, I blamed tiredness. Dublin has a way of grinding people down, the buses that don’t come, the rent that swallows half your wages, the grey mornings when the Luas windows are steamed with everyone’s breath. I told myself we were both adjusting. I became quieter. I learned which cupboard doors annoyed him. I stopped singing while cooking because he said it gave him a headache. I started apologising for things I hadn’t done wrong, like taking too long in the shower or buying the wrong butter.
The worst part was that there was no big cruelty I could point to. No dramatic betrayal, no slammed doors that the neighbours heard, no single line that would make my mother say, “Leave him.” It was more like I kept disappearing in tiny ways. He did not hit me. He did not cheat, as far as I know. He simply made the flat feel like somewhere I was always in the way.
One Sunday in November, we walked through St Stephen’s Green after brunch with his friends. He had been funny all morning, telling stories, kissing the side of my head when someone made a joke about us being an old married couple. On the walk home, I said, softly, “I wish you were like that with me when it’s just us.”
He stopped beside the railings, and his face changed. Not angry exactly, but tired of me. “Do you ever stop needing things?” he said.
It was not the cruelest sentence in the world, but it opened something in me. I remember the sound of leaves scraping the path, the smell of wet earth, a child crying near the duck pond. I remember feeling embarrassed, as if strangers had heard my neediness spilling out onto the pavement. I said nothing the whole way back to Camden Street.
That evening, while he watched football, I went out onto the balcony with my coat over my pyjamas. The takeaway downstairs was closing, and the city had that late Sunday hush, buses sighing at stops, bottles clinking somewhere, rain beginning again. I thought about the version of us I had loved. The coffees, the bridges, the public tenderness. I realised I had mistaken being chosen in moments for being cherished in a life.
I did not leave that night. People like to imagine you make one brave decision and everything follows. I stayed another month. I tried a proper conversation. I cried at the kitchen table. He told me I was too sensitive, then made tea, then behaved kindly for two days. That was almost worse because it proved he knew how. By Christmas, I was exhausted
Note: Please be aware that these are written in confidentiality and there is not reference or mention of any real people and their sentiments here. Every incident and Story tends to be emotional so please read at your own emotional risk. Website is not responsible for anything related. HumansofDublin.io is not related to the photography project HumansofDublin by Peter Varga
