As I promised in my reply to your comment on one of my essays, I’ve read this incredible piece. What you describe so vividly, Tanja, reminds me of how our culture tends to romanticise endurance in love, almost as if suffering were proof of its authenticity. We inherit myths where Penelope waits decades for Odysseus, or where Tristan and Isolde destroy themselves in devotion, and then we internalise that the ache is somehow the evidence. But endurance, as you so sharply reveal, is often just captivity dressed in poetry. I sometimes think of it like Baudelaire’s notion of “the albatross”: majestic in the sky, but dragging its wings pathetically on the deck once captured. We confuse the rare moments of flight with a proof of lasting freedom, when in fact we are the bird grounded and humiliated.
To me, the most dangerous part isn’t even the withholding lover, it’s how we become co-authors of our own diminishment. We polish the chains until they resemble jewels. We turn silence into mystery, distance into independence, ambiguity into art. We mythologise our own abandonment until we no longer recognise it as such. I’ve done it. Once. I know exactly how it feels. It’s the same psychological trap that keeps gamblers pulling the lever, or keeps cult members rationalising their devotion… intermittent reinforcement is cruel and almost alchemical in how it fuses hope to humiliation.
There is also a peculiar grief not only for what wasn’t, but for the self we betrayed in the process. You mourn the other and at the same time you mourn the version of yourself that once knew better, or might have chosen differently. That is its own funeral. And yet, paradoxically, that grief is also where the resurrection begins. Because unlike the fantasy of them “finally showing up”, this grief can actually be metabolised into strength. It can become the structure of new discernment, the curriculum of boundaries, the reminder that clarity is always kinder than crumbs.
Love at its best is a reciprocity of presence, not a riddle to solve. Anything else, however intoxicating, however poetically staged, is not intimacy but theatre. And once you see the proscenium arch, you realise: the play was never written for you, but you no longer need to sit in the audience waiting for an encore. You can write your own script, one where tenderness and truth are not rare cameos but the main act.
Tamara, you named something I have long sensed but hadn’t yet quite articulated: that we are taught to romanticise endurance, to mistake suffering for sincerity, ambiguity for depth. And worse — we often become the ghostwriters of our own captivity. I know that stage well. I polished my chains until they shimmered like purpose. I defended the silences, called them space. I built a cathedral from scraps of presence.
But this time, I didn’t write to romanticise the ruin. I wrote to reclaim the ground beneath it. I didn’t want pity, or even applause. I wanted to tell my personal truth without flinching. And yes, it hurt to write it. But not nearly as much as it hurt to live it.
So your comment? It didn’t just see me — it met me. With clarity. With language that slices and soothes all at once. And for that, I thank you and I am grateful this one reached you.
As I promised in my reply to your comment on one of my essays, I’ve read this incredible piece. What you describe so vividly, Tanja, reminds me of how our culture tends to romanticise endurance in love, almost as if suffering were proof of its authenticity. We inherit myths where Penelope waits decades for Odysseus, or where Tristan and Isolde destroy themselves in devotion, and then we internalise that the ache is somehow the evidence. But endurance, as you so sharply reveal, is often just captivity dressed in poetry. I sometimes think of it like Baudelaire’s notion of “the albatross”: majestic in the sky, but dragging its wings pathetically on the deck once captured. We confuse the rare moments of flight with a proof of lasting freedom, when in fact we are the bird grounded and humiliated.
To me, the most dangerous part isn’t even the withholding lover, it’s how we become co-authors of our own diminishment. We polish the chains until they resemble jewels. We turn silence into mystery, distance into independence, ambiguity into art. We mythologise our own abandonment until we no longer recognise it as such. I’ve done it. Once. I know exactly how it feels. It’s the same psychological trap that keeps gamblers pulling the lever, or keeps cult members rationalising their devotion… intermittent reinforcement is cruel and almost alchemical in how it fuses hope to humiliation.
There is also a peculiar grief not only for what wasn’t, but for the self we betrayed in the process. You mourn the other and at the same time you mourn the version of yourself that once knew better, or might have chosen differently. That is its own funeral. And yet, paradoxically, that grief is also where the resurrection begins. Because unlike the fantasy of them “finally showing up”, this grief can actually be metabolised into strength. It can become the structure of new discernment, the curriculum of boundaries, the reminder that clarity is always kinder than crumbs.
Love at its best is a reciprocity of presence, not a riddle to solve. Anything else, however intoxicating, however poetically staged, is not intimacy but theatre. And once you see the proscenium arch, you realise: the play was never written for you, but you no longer need to sit in the audience waiting for an encore. You can write your own script, one where tenderness and truth are not rare cameos but the main act.
I applaud your courage for writing this. Bravo!
Tamara, you named something I have long sensed but hadn’t yet quite articulated: that we are taught to romanticise endurance, to mistake suffering for sincerity, ambiguity for depth. And worse — we often become the ghostwriters of our own captivity. I know that stage well. I polished my chains until they shimmered like purpose. I defended the silences, called them space. I built a cathedral from scraps of presence.
But this time, I didn’t write to romanticise the ruin. I wrote to reclaim the ground beneath it. I didn’t want pity, or even applause. I wanted to tell my personal truth without flinching. And yes, it hurt to write it. But not nearly as much as it hurt to live it.
So your comment? It didn’t just see me — it met me. With clarity. With language that slices and soothes all at once. And for that, I thank you and I am grateful this one reached you.