The engine hums softly as I pull out of the driveway, the house shrinking in the rearview mirror. Another day begins, a familiar rhythm: home to car, car to office, office back to car, and car to home. My mind is already racing—emails to answer, deadlines to meet, the mental checklist that never quiets. I’m present in body, but my heart? It’s somewhere else, tangled in the demands of a life I’ve built with fierce determination. I don’t even notice it’s been absent.
For years, I’ve prided myself on being the alpha, the one who holds it all together in equal partnership even though my work is more demanding. Work, home, the kids, the bills—I juggle them with a tenacity that’s both my armor and my crown. He’s always been there, my spouse, steady as the sunrise, with that smile that hasn’t changed since the day he first saw me across a crowded event. I thought I knew what love looked like after a decade of companionship. I thought I was giving enough.
But last night, he spoke up. We were clearing the dinner plates, the kids already upstairs, when he set down his glass and looked at me—not with anger, but with a quiet ache. “I miss you,” he said, his voice low, like he’d been carrying the words for too long. “You’re here, but you’re not *here*. I don’t know how to reach you anymore.”
I froze, the dish in my hand suddenly heavy. I wanted to argue, to point to the work load, the taxing drive, the schedules I manage, the life we’ve built. But his eyes—those same eyes that sparkled when he proposed, when he vowed to love me through every storm—held a truth I couldn’t dodge. He’s still crazy about me, just as he was when he first saw me, all fire and ambition, laughing too loudly at his terrible jokes. That love, unwavering and raw, is a blessing that humbles me and makes me feel like I am the luckiest girl on the planet. But it’s also a pain, a mirror showing me what I’ve let slip away.
I lay awake that night even though tired as hell, his words spinning in my mind, an emotional whirlwind that left me raw. How had I missed this? How had I let my presence become a ghost in our home? I’m the love of his life, and he deserves more than the scraps of me left after the world takes its share. He’s an alpha too, my equal in every way, and I’ve dimmed that in him by not letting him in. I want to be omnipresent for him, to make him feel as cherished as he makes me feel with every quiet gesture, every stolen glance.
So here’s my vow, born in the quiet of that sleepless night. I’ll plan more date nights, not just dinners but moments where we’re just us, laughing over wine or dancing in the kitchen to songs we loved in our twenties. I’ll ask him how he’s ‘really’ feeling, not just on those rainy days when the world feels heavy, but also on the ‘usual’ days and I’ll listen without trying to fix it. I’ll leave him quick digital notes—texts, voice memos, silly emojis—to remind him he’s my first thought, not my last. I’ll cook his favorite meals more often, those recipes he loves that fill the house with warmth. And I’ll let him take care of me, even when my independent she-alpha spirit skews at the thought.
I’m an alpha, but so is he. I want him to feel that in my presence, to know he’s my partner, not my shadow. I want to honor the man who’s loved me through every version of myself, who still looks at me like I’m his beginning and end.
As I pull back into the driveway tonight, the house glowing in the dusk, I wonder: what else have I missed in the rush of my days? It’s a question that lingers, a quiet challenge to see the world—and the man I love—through new eyes.
