Berhenti berharap

You read it right. 

I’ve stopped hoping.

Not because my feelings have vanished — no, they still linger deep inside, quiet but present — but because I’ve stopped showing them.

I’ve stopped trying to fight for something that feels like it’s slipping further away, a battle I seem to be fighting alone.

It’s a strange feeling, to care so deeply yet stand still, powerless. 

To love and still learn to let go. 

To hope, but stop hoping that the other side will meet you halfway.

I’ve asked myself a thousand times: why keep trying to hold a marriage together when I’m the only one who believes it can be saved? 

When every effort I make feels invisible, unnoticed, as if my heart’s loudest cries are just echoes lost in an empty room.

If you want to leave, then pack your bags. 

Go where your heart pulls you.

I will not beg you to stay.

I will not stand in your way.

Because I am tired.

Tired of crying alone in the dark, of silent tears no one sees.

Tired of pretending I am strong when inside I am breaking, piece by piece.

I’ve grieved enough for us. 

For what we were, for what we could have been.

This silence between us, it’s deafening.

But I promise you this — if you choose to walk away, I won’t raise my voice.

I won’t unravel in front of you or anyone else.

Because I have to believe there’s dignity left in letting go gracefully.

Bismillah.

If this marriage is destined to endure — if fate wills us to stay — then may we find a way to heal, to understand, to forgive.

May we uncover a path where both of us can win, where love is not a battlefield but a refuge.

But if the stars have aligned differently, and this chapter must close, may we part with kindness, with respect still intact, and may we find friendship in the ruins.

Bismillah.

I’m not naïve enough to believe the road ahead will be easy, nor that the wounds won’t sting or the nights won’t feel unbearably long.

But I do know this — I must stop holding on to shadows.

I must stop hoping for a different story when the pages keep turning the same way.

And though I stop hoping now, I will never stop caring.

Because love — even quiet, fading love — is never truly gone.

It lingers in the spaces we once shared, in the memories that refuse to fade.

So yes, I’ve stopped hoping.

But I haven’t stopped wishing the best for you, for us, for whatever comes next.

Bismillah.