Why did I never say I loved them?
Looking back, it rarely feels like cowardice. There were reasons, and they were good ones. The timing was wrong. Someone would get hurt. It could not lead anywhere sensible. Each reason held up. Years later the words are still unsaid, and the reasons are hard to remember.
Anton Chekhov wrote a story about a man with very good reasons. It is called "About Love".
A careful man
A landowner named Alyokhin tells two guests about Anna, the young wife of a friend. For years he visits their house almost every week. The two of them feel the same and both know it. Neither says a word.
Alyokhin is not shy. He thinks it through, carefully, again and again. What would it do to her husband and children? Where could he take her? His own life is dull; what would she be moving into? How long would it last? What if he fell ill, or they grew cold?
Anna reasons the same way. Everyone in that house looks on him as a noble being.
The reasons at the station
The silence lasts until Anna leaves the town for good. In the train compartment, a minute before the third bell, he finally tells her. And then:
"I realized how unnecessary, how petty, and how deceptive all that had hindered us from loving was."
— Anton Chekhov, "About Love", tr. Constance Garnett
Deceptive is the odd word, because none of the reasons were false. The deception was in where they stood. They took the place of something else, and they looked like decency.
Whether a long love is still love or only habit is a separate question, with its own page. Here the love never got the chance to become anything.
What the story leaves
Chekhov does not say Alyokhin should have spoken sooner. He shows a man whose caution looked exactly like conscience. The question stays with the reader: what reasoning stands in the place of what I never said?
Epimelea is an app built around the existential school. The conversation carries over from one meeting to the next. The archive is encrypted on the device and belongs to the person who wrote it.
About the app: an AI therapist for long-term therapy
This page is about a school of psychotherapy. It is not medical advice and not emergency help. If you are in danger right now, contact your local emergency number, or find a helpline in your country at findahelpline.com.