Ktgrdn

“Never again since had he been able to absorb himself; never again had he been able to believe in that way. Perhaps it was that - the loss of belief - that constituted his yearning for the old life. Whatever it was, he and his wife had built things that had flourished, had together expanded the sum of what they were and what they had; life had responded willingly to them, had treated them abundantly, and this - he now saw - was what had given him the confidence to break it all, break it with what now seemed to him to be an extraordinary casualness, because he thought there would be more.

More what? I asked.

“More life” - he said, opening his hands in a gesture of receipt. “And more affection” he added, after a pause. “I wanted more affection.”
― Rachel Cusk, Outline

“But now it was she who could not be found: she was plunging down cold white mountainsides in the Arlberg, where he did not exist for her any more than she existed for him. She didn’t answer his calls, or answered them curtly, distractedly, saying she had to go. She could not be called upon to recognize him, and this was the most bewildering thing of all, for it made him feel absolutely unreal. It was with her, after all, that his identity had been forged: if she no longer recognized him, then who was he?”
― Rachel Cusk, Outline