Understanding the Real Reasons Behind Infidelity

When you see something good, when you see something pretty, you think of me.

You said you called because you wanted to hear my voice, and all I did was pour out anxious words.

After we hung up, I saw the photo again, and my heart went cold.

In my selfishness, I kept inventing hundreds of reasons you would have to abandon me, pushing you away and blaming myself.

All the while, you were thinking of me, even in an ordinary night scene, wanting to share it with me.

To someone like you, I keep peeling off my old burdens and making you carry them. And still, my shoulders refuse to feel any lighter. I resent that they won’t.

You once shone so brightly when you said, “I’ll help you.”

And even as I watch you struggle and suffocate inside the mud of me, I know I still won’t be able to let go of your sleeve.

Someday, I may have to watch you walk away, your back turned to me, mud-stained and wounded all over — and watching you go would wound me, too.

But maybe letting you go now, cruelly, is the only thing I can do for you with what I feel for you.

I think about the person who will one day stand beside you and make you laugh.

Someone with a heart as clear and steady as yours. Someone beautiful, someone who belongs with you, who would never dim your light, only make it brighter.

I let myself picture you happy with someone like that.

I hate this version of me, so unsure of any future with you.

Even to my own eyes, I look ugly and small.

So I cannot bring myself to look at what I must look like, reflected in yours.

Why does it have to be like this? Why am I this kind of person?

I know I have to accept it. I know I do.

This selfishness will probably make you leave in the end.

But no matter how many times my thoughts circle back, they always return to the same place: with only this plea left in me — that you would stay beside me, that you would not drift away.

A desperate, anxious heart.

That is why I am all the more sorry.

And all the more grateful.

Written by Hana
© 2026