When the Arab Spring swept through Egypt in 2011, protests and riots ushered out decades of military rule under Hosni Mubarak. That change was short-lived as another military strongman, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, eventually took power. Arrests ensued, dissenters disappeared, and protests were met with violence.

But what got lost in the sea of political change were the partners left behind. The Egyptian photographer Hadeer Mahmoud set out to tell their stories.

“My goal was to show the injustice the women face in every way,” Ms. Mahmoud said in an email. “These women’s lives were paused until their beloved were released. They’re all waiting to start their lives with their partners.”

Ms. Mahmoud captured the moments of longing and loss through the stories of three young women whose sweethearts had been arrested in the wake of riots. They met through mutual friends, and while fear of retribution hung over them, women like Sara Mourad felt their stories were too important not to tell.

Ms. Mourad, 26, a former journalist, was waiting for her fiancé, Mohamed Abdlah, an accountant, to join her in Qatar for their wedding in 2015. But Mr. Abdlah never made it — he was arrested while boarding his flight from Egypt.

“His arrest in Egypt put Sara in a very difficult situation as she was living in Qatar, and couldn’t follow up on the case from abroad,” Ms. Mahmoud said. Ms. Mourad used all of her vacation days to visit him in prison, but her absence ultimately cost her job. She eventually moved to Egypt to live with Mr. Abdlah’s family.

Ms. Mourad and Mr. Abdlah met through mutual friends at an educational event about the electoral process. Ms. Mourad cooked a dish for the event; Mr. Abdlah later confessed his attraction to her after tasting her food.

Even in prison, Ms. Mourad still cooks for Mr. Abdlah. She’ll bring him his favorite meal — stuffed zucchini, eggplants and grape leaves — and they’ll share it with other inmates.

Ms. Mourad savors these visiting days, Ms. Mahmoud said, applying makeup and wearing new clothes when she visits.

“She lives for these days,” Ms. Mahmoud said.

Omnia Magdy, a 27-year-old graphic designer, used to make a cake out of paper to celebrate her fiancé’s birthday in prison. Her husband, Omar Abdel Maqsod, a photojournalist, was arrested in 2014, two weeks before their wedding. He was sentenced to life in prison after being charged with participating in a riot and burning vehicles in a protest he said he did not attend.

Ms. Mahmoud hoped to make Ms. Magdy the main subject of her project, but the emotional stress of her fiancé’s imprisonment began to take a toll. After three years of imprisonment, with no end in sight, Mr. Abdel Maqsod left her.

“Omar decided to leave me, I was shocked and decided to wear the wedding dress, which I didn’t get to wear before his arrest,” Ms. Magdy wrote to Ms. Mahmoud. “I don’t know whether it was a farewell to Omar and our dream or in defense of our rights. I had lost my way, I lost myself and everything.”

Ms. Mahmoud shows the remnants of the life they once had — furniture covered in foil to protect it from gathering dust, a wedding dress never worn, a woman in heartbreak.

Eliane Friess was one of the lucky women. Ms. Friess, a 29-year-old German student, went to Egypt to study social and cultural anthropology. It was there she met her partner, Ahmed Said, a physician. But Mr. Said was arrested in 2015 for participating in a sit-in commemorating a large riot near Tahrir Square, known as the clashes of Mohammed Mahmoud Street, where 40 people were killed in 2011.

Ms. Friess was determined to stay in Egypt until Mr. Said was released, even moving to an apartment near the prison. Mr. Said was imprisoned for a year and a half before he was released by presidential pardon. The couple traveled back to Germany on his release to start a new life

“We decided to leave the country as fast as we could, and without letting anyone know about any details,” Ms. Friess wrote to Ms. Mahmoud in February. “We’ve been in Frankfurt for a couple of weeks now, and things are starting to settle, even though there is still a lot of work to be done in order to rebuild our lives.”