Richard had always believed he was a good husband. He worked hard, provided well, stayed faithful, and never missed an anniversary or other important family celebrations. In his mind, that was enough.
But over time, something quiet shifted. The ease between him and Mariska — the laughter, the shared ideas, the small gestures that once made them feel deeply connected — had thinned. Conversations became practical, affection predictable. It wasn’t that either of them had stopped loving; it was that the texture of their closeness had changed.
Through coaching, Richard began to see how he had drifted from the kind of husband he wanted to be. Not through a single choice, but through many unnoticed ones. Success had absorbed his energy, and what once flowed naturally between them now needed attention and care.
The Drift That Success Conceals
At first, Richard hardly noticed her. She was a colleague — bright, kind, attentive. Their conversations were light, harmless, professional. But as the quiet distance at home grew, he found himself looking forward to her warmth, the way she asked about his ideas, his family, even his hopes.
It wasn’t about attraction — not at first. But he would be lying if he said that, later on, there wasn’t a part of him that enjoyed the attention. He never acted on it, yet he couldn’t deny how good it felt to be seen again — not for what he could provide, but for who he was.
The pursuit of success had created distance. The distance became silence. And in that silence, there was space for another voice.
The Coaching Mirror
When Richard began coaching, he thought the conversations would focus on time management or work-life balance. Instead, they became a mirror.
His coach didn’t judge — he simply asked questions that slowed him down.
“Who are you becoming through all this success?”
“When did you last feel close to Mariska — really close?”
At first, the answers came easily. But the more he spoke, the more he realised how shallow his justifications had become. The late nights, the distraction, the distance — they weren’t signs of commitment to his business. They were symptoms of disconnection from himself.
He started to see how pride had disguised itself as provision, how exhaustion had replaced empathy, and how loneliness had quietly rewritten his idea of love. What looked like success on the outside was, in truth, a slow forgetting of what mattered most.
Coaching didn’t fix it — it revealed it. It gave him language for what his heart had been trying to say: that the man he had become was not the husband he wanted to be.
Remembering What Love Really Is
It was his coach who invited him to pause and reconnect with why he had married Mariska in the first place.
“Before all the pressure, before the business — what drew you to her?” he’d asked.
The question stayed with Richard. A few mornings later, he found himself paging through an old notebook where he’d once written lines from their wedding ceremony. He stopped at the familiar passage — words he’d heard countless times but never really lived with:
Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking,
it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Reading them now felt different. They weren’t poetic anymore — they were personal.
Patience meant slowing down long enough to listen without defending.
Kindness meant showing care when it wasn’t convenient.
Not self-seeking meant taking interest in her world again, not just his own.
Not proud meant admitting that success had made him forget humility.
Each line became a quiet instruction — not about romance, but about restoration. Through coaching, he realised that love wasn’t something to feel; it was something to practice. And in rediscovering that practice, he began to see Mariska not as the woman he was surviving life with, but as someone he was learning to love again — with presence, not performance.
Love Beyond Provision
Change didn’t arrive as a revelation; it came through small, deliberate choices. Richard started by doing one thing differently each day — not to fix his marriage, but to nurture it. He left his phone in another room when he got home. He lingered a little longer after dinner. He asked about her day and listened, really listened, without preparing an answer.
At first, it felt awkward — like learning a language he used to speak fluently but had forgotten. But slowly, something softened. Mariska began to meet him in the space he was creating. The home felt warmer. Conversation felt lighter. Even moments of silence began to feel safe again.
Richard realised that love was never meant to be measured by how much he provided, but by how present he was. Provision could sustain a household, but only presence — lived daily, practiced intentionally — could keep love alive.
Restoration
Richard often thought about how close he’d come to missing it — not through betrayal or crisis, but through distraction. The drift hadn’t been dramatic; it had been quiet, respectable, and gradual. That was what made it dangerous.
What coaching offered wasn’t advice. It was awareness — a mirror that helped him see how easily love can fade beneath the noise of achievement. It reminded him that being a husband, like being human, is a practice that never stops.
Richard’s story isn’t about repair; it’s about restoration — being restored to patience, kindness, humility, and presence. The same qualities that once drew Mariska to him are the ones that now keep them close.
If any part of his story feels familiar — if success has come at the cost of closeness — perhaps coaching could be that mirror for you too. A space to slow down, to listen to what’s gone quiet, and to begin loving as a daily practice again.
🕊️ Read more reflections at www.arukasolutions.co.za.
📷 = Stockcake
