People start asking questions,” she said. “Like: Is this person who I spent so many years of my life with still the right person for me if I don’t know who I am anymore?”
Tetiana, by her own admission, experienced something like that. Their marriage had never been bad, she said, but as the years passed she began to feel “a void.” She and Andrii tried a million different things to rejuvenate it — fixing up their primary house, buying an apartment, getting a new dog. But nothing worked, she said, and for her, the relationship was starting to feel like “a book you have already read.”
Loyalty kept her in it. But fleeing to a new country put her in a new frame of mind.
A few weeks into her life as a refugee, Tetiana met a Finnish man. She said it was very difficult to bring this up with Andrii. She called him on the phone and said: “I don’t want to continue our relationship. I want a new place, a new relationship, a new everything. I want a new life.”
ANDRII
I was driving a car at that moment. I felt like I was covered in boiling water. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I pulled over. Even after we got off the phone, I was trembling. I thought I was going crazy. I blamed the war, the Russians, our government, everyone around me.
I was surprised, yes, absolutely. I refused to believe it. I thought it was some flirtation and that it would end. But one night at the end of May, I called and texted her all day and she didn’t return my calls. I was awake all night. And then I understood: She’s with another man.
I finally texted her a message that said: I understand everything.
TETIANA
The whole summer passed. Andrii said he supported me. But he didn’t do anything. He was hoping I’d change my mind. In August, I called him again and asked for his help. He agreed to file for the divorce because he was in Ukraine, and I signed the papers here in Finland and sent them by bus.
