Reclaiming my life

     Valentine’s Day—roughly two weeks in—he told me he loved me. That he was in love with me. I said I felt the same, though in hindsight, I wasn’t there yet. I was falling, not landed. I was caught in the intensity of it all—the attention, the promises, the certainty with which he spoke about us . I was in lust, mesmerized by who he said he was, by everything he said he wanted to do for me, for us. Any time I expressed concern, stress, or asked how we would handle a real issue, he had the same answer: “We’ll figure it out together. That’s part of the deal.” Nothing was ever a big problem to him—at least not when it came to the relationship. He had a way of making me feel like I was overreacting, like my instincts were unnecessary because everything would always be fine. He constantly professed his love—how much he loved me, loved what we were building, how we could work through anything. Our days were filled with flirty text messages, lunchtime phone calls, and evenin...

  Our first conversation I don’t remember the exact details of how we connected, only that it was through a dating site. What I do remember clearly is how quickly it moved once we exchanged phone numbers. There was very little texting—just one phone call that lasted four or five hours. I remember feeling an instant pull toward him, a sense of familiarity that felt rare and disarming. He told me he felt it too. We talked about everything and nothing, bouncing between deep, intimate disclosures and light, meaningless chatter, as if we had known each other far longer than we had. He presented himself as kind, gentle, and emotionally aware. He spoke softly, thoughtfully. He told me he had been married for nearly twenty years and that his wife was a former police officer from Pismo Beach. He described a marriage that had slowly eroded under constant criticism. He said she was often cruel to him, especially in public, and that she humiliated him privately by telling him he was inadequat...

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I didn’t set out to tell this story to punish anyone.  I’m telling it because silence became heavier than the truth. For a long time, I questioned whether what happened to me even “counted.” There were no bruises people could point to. No single explosive moment that made everything obvious. What there was instead was a slow erosion — of confidence, safety, clarity, and eventually my sense of self. I was involved with someone who held emotional power over me. On the surface, everything looked ideal. He was polished, composed, generous — a gentleman by every outward measure . To the outside world, he appeared thoughtful and attentive, the kind of person others admired. His image was carefully maintained. Over time, I began to feel invisible. Conversations became destabilizing. My reactions were scrutinized and dissected, while his behavior went largely unquestioned. I found myself apologizing frequently — sometimes without fully understanding what I was apologizing for. I did no...