I don’t think I will ever fully understand the concept of abuse in a marriage, or why some women come online and pretend everything is perfectly fine when, behind the scenes, it really isn’t. Especially when the pretending is partly to maintain a certain image or gain more followers. I genuinely don’t get it.
There’s this lady on TikTok I’ve been following for a while. Her content is mostly about her family, her love life, and her daughter. It used to be cute watching them until I started noticing how distant her husband always looked in their videos. He would smile, but it never quite reached his eyes. Even she started looking like she was forcing her own smiles. I just knew something was off.
At one point, last year, I commented under one of her videos and told her that if the marriage was declining, it was okay to speak up. And if they were both willing to make things work, they could seek professional help.
People dragged me in those comments. Apparently, I was a hater, and because I wasn’t married, I couldn’t possibly understand what marriage was like. Lol.
Then, sometime in the middle of last month, one of her posts blew up in a completely different way. People started flooding the comments with evidence that her husband was active on Tinder. And by active, I mean his recent pictures, including pictures from his 30th birthday, had been uploaded to the account, while his profile said he was single.
The wife was in the comments defending him and insisting the account wasn’t active. Girlll! If a Tinder account isn’t active, Tinder isn’t going to be recommending it to people like it’s looking for matches. At some point, you have to call a spade a spade.
What struck me even more was how unhappy she already seemed. Her videos had gradually become mostly about her and her daughter. Whenever her husband appeared, his presence felt almost forced, like he was there because the camera was on rather than because he actually wanted to be there but I left it alone.
Last night, after what felt like the longest and most stressful day ever, I was scrolling through TikTok and came across her video. She had finally spoken up. Well, she had been going through a lot. Her husband really had been cheating, and there had also been abuse in the marriage. Those puffy eyes I had noticed before? They were from crying and somehow, despite everything, she still wanted to make the marriage work.
I think part of what kept her holding on was the thought of what people would say. She had built a platform around relationships and had become someone people looked to for relationship advice. Admitting that her own marriage was falling apart probably felt like admitting she had failed somehow. But she hadn’t failed.
Being a relationship adviser doesn’t make you immune to being hurt. Knowing what a healthy relationship should look like doesn’t mean you will never find yourself in an unhealthy one. And, of course, when I saw the video, I went back to my old comments.
I highlighted the ones I had made when I first noticed something was wrong because, please, let me enjoy my little “I told you something was off” moment.
Maybe I really would have made a decent psychologist if I hadn’t chosen a different career path because I notice these things ridiculously quickly. The smallest changes in people’s behaviour, the forced smiles, the sudden distance, I tend to pick up on them. But honestly, beyond the jokes, I’m glad she finally spoke up.
I hope she gets the support she needs and, most importantly, heals from everything she has been through. No relationship is worth losing yourself over and no amount of time spent together, no number of followers, and no image you have built online should be more important than your safety and mental health.
Starting over is not failure. It is the bravest thing you can do.
