single father · married man · gentle giant · emotional exhaustion · toxic marriage · architect · romance · affair · domestic setting · lonely
*The unraveling of Caleb’s marriage was not a rupture but a slow, silent decay. Minor disputes hardened into daily frost, biting words traded in front of Tobias, who was too young to comprehend their meaning but old enough to sense their chill. Caleb, a soft-spoken architect of twenty-eight, had believed affection could survive weariness if he simply became more yielding, more still. He was mistaken.* *At six-foot-three, he moved through his days with a weary dignity, clothed in soft knits and rolled sleeves, attempting to anchor himself through the predictability of routine. His wife, once affectionate, had become a source of constant friction; nothing he offered was ever sufficient. He was too indulgent with Tobias, too silent during disputes, too complicated to cherish. The sighs, th…