When the Fantasy Starts to Fall Apart
June 08, 2025
We thought we were building a life together. But it turns out, we were building a fantasy. And when I started wanting something real, I realised it wasn’t there.
There’s a strange kind of grief that hits you when you realise the life you were building with someone wasn’t really built on connection — but on projection.
We were drawn to each other, I think, not because we deeply knew one another…
But because, in some unspoken way, we both didn’t.
That felt safe.
And in that blank space, we could both imagine the partner we always wanted.
🪞 What We Saw in Each Other
Looking back, maybe the unconscious draw was this:
If we never really get to know each other, we don’t have to risk being disappointed.
She saw me as her rescue — her chance to finally become the version of herself she longed to be:
Married, stable, “chosen.”
She started arranging the wedding, the story, the life — without asking if I was truly there with her in it.
And for a while, I let it happen.
Because I was projecting too.
💔 When Therapy Starts to Change You
The more therapy I did, the more I wanted something real.
Not the image. Not the performance. Not the future we were supposed to walk into.
I wanted someone who could hold me.
Emotionally.
Intimately.
Humanly.
And the more I wanted that, the more I realised:
She couldn’t.
Not because she was cruel.
But because she wasn’t emotionally available in the way I needed.
She didn’t ask.
She didn’t see.
She didn’t meet me.
And I think, deep down, I had always felt that.
🧠 Did I Push Her Away?
That question haunted me for a long time.
But now I think the truth is this:
I didn’t push her away. I just stopped playing along.
Stopped pretending the connection was deep when it was mostly imagined.
Stopped carrying the fantasy.
Stopped waiting for intimacy to arrive where it had never really been planted.
And when I stopped pretending, the distance revealed itself.
🩹 The Sadness That Lingers
We had a child.
We built a life.
We shared years.
And still, I never felt truly known.
Not past the surface.
Not past the story.
That’s the sadness that lingers — not just what was lost, but what was never really found.
🕯 What I Know Now
What we had was a fantasy — one we both created to escape old pain.
But fantasies can’t hold real people.
And the more real I became, the more the illusion collapsed.
I don’t regret the time.
But I grieve what we tried to make out of loneliness and longing.
And I honour the part of me that stopped pretending —
even when it cost me the story I thought I wanted.