My wife and I had been married for several years, and somewhere along the way, romance had quietly disappeared.<\/p>\n
We still loved each other.<\/p>\n
At least, I thought we did.<\/p>\n
But our conversations had become schedules.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you pick up the kids?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCan you pay the electricity bill?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWho’s taking Emma to soccer?\u201d<\/p>\n
We were parents.<\/p>\n
Roommates.<\/p>\n
Partners.<\/p>\n
But lately, I couldn’t remember the last time we’d simply been husband and wife.<\/p>\n
Then one Friday night, my wife went out for drinks with a few friends.<\/p>\n
I stayed home with the kids.<\/p>\n
At around 1 a.m., my phone buzzed.<\/p>\n
Don’t fall asleep\u2026 I have a surprise for you when I get home.<\/strong><\/p>\n I stared at the message.<\/p>\n Then smiled.<\/p>\n It had been a long time since she’d sent me anything like that.<\/p>\n When she finally came home, I heard the front door close quietly.<\/p>\n A few minutes later, she walked into our bedroom.<\/p>\n And stopped.<\/p>\n She wasn’t wearing the outfit she’d left in.<\/p>\n She’d changed into a simple black dress.<\/p>\n Her hair was down.<\/p>\n She smiled at me.<\/p>\n \u201cI’ve been thinking about you all night.\u201d<\/p>\n I laughed.<\/p>\n \u201cShould I be worried?\u201d<\/p>\n She came closer.<\/p>\n \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n Then she kissed me.<\/p>\n It wasn’t rushed.<\/p>\n It wasn’t routine.<\/p>\n It felt like the woman I had fallen in love with years earlier had suddenly returned.<\/p>\n We talked for hours.<\/p>\n About our first date.<\/p>\n Our honeymoon.<\/p>\n The ridiculous apartment we rented when we were newly married.<\/p>\n The time we got lost on a road trip and ended up sleeping in the car.<\/p>\n We laughed until we cried.<\/p>\n We kissed.<\/p>\n We held each other.<\/p>\n For the first time in weeks, we weren’t exhausted parents sharing a house.<\/p>\n We were dating again.<\/p>\n When we finally fell asleep, I felt happier than I had in months.<\/p>\n The next morning, she woke up and acted completely normal.<\/p>\n She made coffee.<\/p>\n She packed lunches.<\/p>\n She reminded me that Emma had soccer at ten.<\/p>\n I stared at her.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you really going to act like last night didn’t happen?\u201d<\/p>\n She smiled.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou know exactly what I mean.\u201d<\/p>\n She poured coffee into her mug.<\/p>\n Then she looked at me.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s something you need to know.\u201d<\/p>\n My stomach tightened.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n She sat down.<\/p>\n \u201cLast night wasn’t spontaneous.\u201d<\/p>\n I waited.<\/p>\n \u201cI planned it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat doesn’t sound bad.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt isn’t.\u201d<\/p>\n She took a breath.<\/p>\n \u201cI went out with my friends because I needed someone to help me make a decision.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat decision?\u201d<\/p>\n She reached into her purse.<\/p>\n And pulled out an envelope.<\/p>\n My name was written across the front.<\/p>\n I stared at it.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat’s that?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOpen it.\u201d<\/p>\n Inside was a photograph.<\/p>\n It was a picture of us.<\/p>\n From our wedding day.<\/p>\n On the back, she’d written:<\/p>\n This is the man I fell in love with.<\/strong><\/p>\n I looked at her.<\/p>\n \u201cI don’t understand.\u201d<\/p>\n She smiled sadly.<\/p>\n \u201cNeither did I.\u201d<\/p>\n She explained that for months, she’d been feeling like she’d lost herself.<\/p>\n Not because of me.<\/p>\n Not because of the kids.<\/p>\n Because somewhere between work, parenting, bills, and responsibilities, she’d stopped remembering who she was.<\/p>\n Then her friends had convinced her to do something she’d never done before.<\/p>\n They asked her to write down three things she missed about our marriage.<\/p>\n She wrote:<\/p>\n His laugh.<\/strong><\/p>\n Our conversations.<\/strong><\/p>\n Feeling wanted.<\/strong><\/p>\n Then they asked her another question.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat would happen if you tried to bring those things back?\u201d<\/p>\n She realized she didn’t actually want to leave.<\/p>\n She wanted to come home.<\/p>\n So she changed her clothes before coming back because she wanted to feel like the woman who used to dress up for me.<\/p>\n She sent that text because she wanted to see if I would still get excited about her.<\/p>\n And when I did, she knew something.<\/p>\n \u201cWe’re still here,\u201d she whispered.<\/p>\n I reached across the table.<\/p>\n \u201cSo last night was a test?\u201d<\/p>\n She shook her head.<\/p>\n \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n She smiled.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a reminder.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOf what?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat we aren’t broken.\u201d<\/p>\n I looked down at the photograph.<\/p>\n Then I realized something.<\/p>\n I’d been thinking the same thing for months.<\/p>\n I’d just been too afraid to say it.<\/p>\n \u201cI miss us too.\u201d<\/p>\n Her eyes filled with tears.<\/p>\n \u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBecause last night, you talked to me for four hours.\u201d<\/p>\n I laughed.<\/p>\n \u201cI guess we had a lot to catch up on.\u201d<\/p>\n She reached across the table.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do.\u201d<\/p>\n That morning, we made a decision.<\/p>\n Not to become the couple we used to be.<\/p>\n But to become a better version of the couple we had become.<\/p>\n We started having one night a week where phones stayed away.<\/p>\n Sometimes we’d go out.<\/p>\n Sometimes we’d sit on the couch after the kids went to sleep.<\/p>\n Sometimes we’d just talk.<\/p>\n And slowly, something changed.<\/p>\n We started laughing again.<\/p>\n Touching again.<\/p>\n Dating again.<\/p>\n Not because we had fewer responsibilities.<\/p>\n But because we stopped allowing our responsibilities to erase us.<\/p>\n Six months later, my wife came home from another night out with friends.<\/p>\n She walked into the bedroom wearing the same black dress.<\/p>\n I smiled.<\/p>\n \u201cShould I be worried?\u201d<\/p>\n She laughed.<\/p>\n \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n Then she kissed me.<\/p>\n \u201cThere’s something you need to know.\u201d<\/p>\n I raised an eyebrow.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n She whispered:<\/p>\n \u201cI still choose you.\u201d<\/p>\n I pulled her close.<\/p>\n \u201cGood.\u201d<\/p>\n She smiled.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause I was hoping you’d say the same.\u201d<\/p>\n And for the first time in years, I didn’t feel like I was sharing a house with my wife.<\/p>\n I felt like I was coming home to her.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My wife and I had been married for several years, and somewhere along the way, romance had quietly disappeared. We still loved each other. At least, I thought we did. … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-keang007"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/readupdatemystory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/readupdatemystory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/readupdatemystory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readupdatemystory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readupdatemystory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33714"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/readupdatemystory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33715,"href":"https:\/\/readupdatemystory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33714\/revisions\/33715"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readupdatemystory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/readupdatemystory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readupdatemystory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readupdatemystory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}