There are goodbyes that begin long before anyone says goodbye. Sometimes, nothing dramatic happens. There is no major argument, no betrayal that suddenly brings everything crashing down, no final conversation where two people sit across from each other and decide that it is over.
Instead, something simply changes.
The conversations become different. The effort becomes uneven. The person who once reached out without being asked begins to withdraw. Questions become fewer. Replies become shorter. The warmth that once felt natural starts becoming something you have to search for.
And somehow, you notice.
You may not be able to explain exactly what is happening, but something inside you tells you that the relationship is no longer where it used to be. I have experienced that feeling myself.
There was a time when I believed I was building something meaningful with someone. I had every reason to be hopeful. There were conversations, promises and moments that made the future feel possible. Then, gradually, the dynamic changed.
I noticed the distance before I understood the reason for it. I asked questions. I tried to understand. I tried to give space while still holding on to the belief that whatever was happening would eventually pass.
Perhaps that is what many of us do when we love someone. We notice the signs, but we negotiate with them in our minds. We tell ourselves that the person is simply tired.
Maybe they are going through something. Maybe they need time. Maybe things will return to normal. And because we still love them, hope becomes louder than what we are actually seeing. That is where relationships can become painful.
Love is supposed to be something two people carry together, but sometimes you suddenly realise that one person is carrying most of the weight.
One person keeps checking in. One person keeps asking what is wrong. One person keeps trying to repair the connection. One person keeps praying that things will work out.
Meanwhile, the other person is slowly becoming emotionally unavailable. The difficult part is that people do not always announce when they have started leaving. Sometimes they remain physically present while emotionally moving further away.
They may still answer your calls. They may still talk to you. They may still tell you that nothing is wrong. But something feels different.
And when you love someone deeply, that uncertainty can be more painful than a clear goodbye. Because a clear goodbye gives you something to grieve. Silence gives you questions.
You begin searching for explanations. You replay conversations. You wonder whether you did something wrong. You wonder whether you should try harder, communicate better, give more, or simply wait.
You keep looking for the moment when everything will make sense. But sometimes, there is no single moment. Sometimes people change. Sometimes feelings change. Sometimes two people who once wanted the same thing slowly begin wanting different lives.
And sometimes, one person has already accepted an ending that the other person is still trying to prevent. I think that is why we sometimes feel a goodbye before it happens.
The heart notices things before the mind is ready to accept them. You can feel the distance. You can feel the imbalance. You can feel that the person who once moved towards you is now slowly moving away.
Yet you remain hopeful because accepting the truth means accepting the possibility of losing someone you still love.
I have learned that you can pray for a relationship, fight for it, communicate, apologise, give it time and still reach a point where you have to accept that you cannot carry it alone.
That isn’t failure.
Sometimes, letting go is not an admission that the love wasn’t real. It is an acknowledgement that love requires two people willing to remain. Perhaps that is the hardest part of relationships. We often prepare ourselves for the final goodbye, but rarely prepare ourselves for the quiet changes that come before it.
The unanswered questions. The emotional distance. The disappearing effort. The feeling that something is ending even though nobody has said it yet. And maybe when you begin to feel that goodbye, you don’t always need to panic.
You don’t need to immediately blame yourself. You don’t need to keep proving that you are worthy of being loved.
Sometimes, you simply need to pay attention. Because people may not always tell you when they are leaving, but their actions often speak long before their words do.
And when the goodbye finally comes, perhaps the real lesson is not that you lost someone. Perhaps it is that you finally learned to recognise when you were holding on to something that was no longer being held with you.
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