In the eyes of the law, I am a free woman. But I live in a prison, chained up by guilt, surrounded by bars of mistrust and locked in by the accusatory look in people’s eyes. A few loved ones visit. We sit apart from each other, an invisible wall between us as they wonder who I am.

If falling in love is effortless, then falling out of love is easier still. It happens without you even knowing it. A careless word. A selfish thought. A decision made without consideration of the other. And an ever increasing gap between us as we sleep.

When changes happen gradually we don’t really see them – like the growing of our nails or hair. One day you just look in the mirror and notice you need a cut. But what if you don’t look in that mirror? What if you avoid all mirrors, hiding from what you are not ready to see? What happens then?

Eventually those sharp nails will stab through your shoes. They will scratch and bleed and break.

It had to be me. You were always so resistant to change. You had an incredible ability to avoid the uncomfortable and bury your head in the sand. Even you best friend told me, “He’ll never leave you. But he also won’t change. If you’re not happy, you have to leave him.”

You were always such a procrastinator – always planning, weighing up options, but slow to actually take action. It was one of the many differences between us and certainly a contributor to the fall. You were happy to settle.

Well, maybe not happy. You were okay to settle. But holding it all in eats away at something inside of you. Girls talk, we spill our hearts and minds to our friends, we share our depression, we seek counsel. Men don’t. They keep it inside until it’s too late. It’s a generalisation I know – and not every man and woman fit the stereotypes – but male suicide figures bear witness to just how many do.

JUMP