PHOTO PROMPT © Ted Strutz
We are hardly ever together any more. If we see each other, we grunt a brusque “alright?” and continue our detached lives.
Although we still sleep in the same house, we have separate rooms. We are strangers.
When necessary, we put on a united front, presenting ourselves as a couple, laughing and joking, but seldom connecting. I wonder how many we fool and how many other people are in the same kind of sham relationship.
I see my mates at the pub every night in order to escape the loneliness at home.
It isn’t what I imagined when I proposed.
Word Count: 100
Written for Friday Fictioneers – a 100 words story based on a photo prompt. Hosted by Rochelle. Read the other entries here.
Clare Hempstead 
So sad, Clare
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Thanks Neil. Probably more common than we realise!
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Sad but true. In answer to the question I suspect quite a lot of relationships end up this way. Good writing.
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Thanks Iain. I don’t think anyone has quite ‘got’ the title. It’s a line from Eleanor Rigby: All the lonely people, where do they all come from? I find the title is the hardest thing!
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Ah, I was wondering about the tittle. Love the song. This was a great look at a loveless marriage. I say run, run.
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Thanks – I think one of them should have run a long time ago!
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Economic necessity keeps some couples together. Inertia stops others moving apart. I suppose it’s meeting ‘another’ that finally kills a relationship.
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Thanks for taking the time to read and comment. Sadly, you are right. Someone, and I can’t remember who, once said there is no more lonely a place than an unhappy marriage.
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I’ve seen enough of them. At least most couples now split. They don’t feel obliged to stay together in the same way older generations did.
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Dear Clare,
No one imagines that when they are young and in love. It happens all too often. Very well done.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Thanks Rochelle. I marvel at how some people can stay happily married for years and years. So many don’t!
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I’m sure this struck a chord with many
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It was sparked by a friend greeting his wife once!
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Love finding out where stories originate.
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Sadly this exists way more than we think…Lonely life indeed.
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I think you are right. I’d rather be alone than in a relationship like that!
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Time tobreconnect. Preferable to the status quo. Like how you developed this story
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Thanks Michael. I hope they can salvage something, but I fear it may have gone too far.
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Sad that this is all too often the way things end up. Well done.
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Sadly so. I think I am going to have to write something positive about a relationship next week. This is the third in a row of dismal associations!
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Nicely told, Clare, you got it just right. I’m sure there are many in this situation. It’s a sad condition of many marriages.
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Thank you. Unfortunately, I think too many end up this way.
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What a melancholy tale, that may be all too true.
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Thanks Jellico. I wrote it with little expression, because I wanted to show that he had long ago given up feeling.
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And you did so very well. 🙂
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Living separately together–what a tragedy.
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I can’t think of a more lonely situation! Thanks for reading and commenting.
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It never is.
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Ouch, that was said with feeling! Thanks for reading and commenting.
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Too often too true. the realtor who sold our house told us about another he’d sold, where the couple had built a wall right through the middle. She got the kitchen part and cooked all his meals, which she passed through an opening in the wall. Otherwise they were quite separate.
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That’s really taking it to the extreme! They must have had two bathrooms!
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You described the bleakness of a stalled relationship just right. Kudos.
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P.S. The title is spot on, too.
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Thanks Alicia. Glad you liked it.
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This sounds so true to life and a sad reality for many, I bet.
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Unfortunately so!
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Wow. How things change anymore, huh?
Clear and well-drawn slice of life, Clare. Wonderful!
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Thank you. I’m pleased you liked it.
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Wow! So much detail in just 100 words. A superb piece of flash fiction. I love love loved ‘laughing and joking, but seldom connecting’ and the last line too. Well done!
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Interesting take on the prompt. I can see that.
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I wonder how many marriages are this lonely behind closed doors without outsiders realising? Excellent writing Clare.
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Probably more than we like to think! Thanks very much for your lovely comment.
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Alas all too common… but I wonder if it’s not better than we think given the alternatives
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It seems sad from that perspective.
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