She admired his drive from the very beginning. He was up before dawn, at the gym by six, at his desk by eight. He had goals, plans, a five year vision that he could articulate with the clarity of a man who had thought about nothing else. He was building something. He was going somewhere. And she, drawn in by the gravity of his ambition, felt proud to stand beside a man with so much purpose.

But somewhere along the way, the admiration curdled into loneliness. He was never present, even when he was in the room. His phone was always on the table, buzzing with emails and notifications. Dinner conversations revolved around deals and deadlines. Weekends disappeared into projects she was not part of. She began to feel less like a partner and more like an audience, applauding from the sidelines of a life that had no room for her in the main act.