I’ve been married for years and I recently realized that I don’t fantasize about another woman, I fantasize about living alone, and somehow that scares me more than if I were attracted to somebody else because at least then I could point to a problem.

My wife is a good person. She’s loyal, she works, she’s a great mother, she remembers birthdays, pays attention when I’m sick, and has stood beside me through some pretty ugly years. But somewhere along the way our marriage became a never-ending list of tasks.

Mortgage, groceries, school pickup, pediatrician, insurance, in-laws, repairs, sports practice, laundry, vacation budgets. Sometimes I leave work and park two blocks away from our house just so I can sit in silence for fifteen minutes before going inside.

Nobody knows I do this. I tell her traffic was bad. There are nights where I hear the kids yelling and the TV running and somebody asking me to fix something, and I feel this wave of anger followed immediately by shame because these are people I love more than anything.

I don’t want to leave them. I don’t want another family. I just want to stop being needed for a little while. A few months ago my wife took the kids to visit her sister for a weekend and I had the house completely to myself. I ordered takeout, left a plate in the sink, watched a dumb movie, slept eight hours and woke up feeling lighter than I had in years.

When they came back I was genuinely happy to see them, but part of me was grieving the silence before they walked through the door. Nobody really tells you that you can love your family deeply and still feel suffocated by the role you play inside it.

I’m scared to say any of this to my wife because I know she’ll hear “I don’t want you,” when what I really mean is “I don’t know where I went.”