Freedom

What you didn’t know was that my heart broke a million times. You weren’t hateful when we started. You were kind and funny and unbelievably compassionate. You were young and free. We were inseparable. Our love was insatiable. It left me hungering for more and more; I was never full. My favorite place was to be tangled up in your arms, our skin touching closely. I loved to watch you sleep next to me; to place my head on your chest and listen to the beating of your heart. I remember you waking a delirious me from sleep and my heart skipping at the sight of you. I was young and so were you and we were unbelievably, magically in love. You lied to me in the beginning, a fact that you mercilessly joked about years later. You roped me in, making me believe you were someone you weren’t.

I started to sense we weren’t compatible a few months in. You kept making promises to me then changing your mind. You couldn’t see how in love with you I was. I fell hard and fast. I started to see the way you made fun of people for their weight or for things that they couldn’t change like the color of their skin. I brushed it off; you had a hard upbringing. I thought I could make you into a better man, one who was humble and kind. I thought maybe your arrogance was a coping mechanism. I wanted kids and you led me to believe that you did too. I was still hopelessly in love with the man I believed you wanted to be, with the man I knew I deserved.

Then the pain started. It wasn’t all bad but the times you called me names or poked fun at my weight, it felt like a million tiny knives were going after my heart. You would always follow the pain up with a reprieve, making me believe you truly loved me and you didn’t mean to mess up. I just thought you were broken from a childhood of abuse and neglect. I thought that it wasn’t you. I would cry and threaten to leave if you didn’t change.

You wouldn’t stop asking about my weight. I was already so self-conscious about it due to a childhood of being overweight and bullied. You went on and on, never ever letting up, despite my begging you to stop. You publicly humiliated me, at a museum by making me step on a scale. My heart dropped as you looked at the number and told me it “wasn’t that bad”. I felt the shame again that I had tried to bury deep for so many years. I felt like I didn’t deserve anything beyond the way you treated me. I felt like this was the best I could do and that nobody could ever love someone like me. You continued to berate me and others around you, trying to hide your own insecurities. I cried myself to sleep and asked God why I had to go through this. I asked Him why he would have me love someone who could be so cruel to me.

I considered leaving a lot but my stupid heart betrayed me. It longed for you, for your touch, for your presence. I couldn’t separate my heart from my head. Broken from a lifetime of seeing the women in my family be emotionally abused, I passed it off and said that all men are jerks. I would laugh about what you said to family and friends, instead of realizing that it was abuse. I was being abused.

You would have really good, long runs of treating me well. Those were the honeymoon phases. You would be unbelievably compassionate and kind for a long time. You would be supportive but you never wanted me to succeed. Then, out of nowhere, you would say the most horrific things. My best friend would break my heart over and over again. You said you didn’t want to ask me to marry you, that I pressured you, that you only did it to shut me up. Why ask if you didn’t want it? Why didn’t you just fucking let me go? I tried so many times. I was frozen by your back and forth demeanor. I was pained by your words but ignorant to what they were doing to me. My heart broke a little each time you poisoned it with your daggers. Your words that you couldn’t ever take back. I gave you chance after chance.

As time went on, I became less and less important. Your jealousy of me grew as my career took off. You didn’t like that I made more money than you. You made sure to put down my job whenever you could. You made sure to remind me that you had more power than I did. You made sure to belittle me, to keep me where you wanted me.

You see, my love for you didn’t fade all at once. It faded over time, like a million shards, one by one being pulled away with your neglect and hurtful speak. Every time you reminded me that you didn’t want the commitment of marriage, but you did it any way to ‘shut me up’. Every time you put down my work to make yourself seem more important. Every single time you judged someone for their race or appearance. Every time you called me names. Every time you threw our son in my face. Tiny shards that fell off and would never be replaced.

I fought, I tried to get the shards back. I tried for YEARS to fix us. I tried to talk you into being a better man. I tried to get you to put me first. But, like a wounded kid you did anything to protect yourself and you did anything to make sure that you were first. You kept taking from me and kept trying to push me down. It was a great challenge for me for a while. I could fix you, I thought. It wasn’t your fault you were so broken. How could I hold that against you?

Months turned to years and I became weaker. The shards you broke off gave people the opportunity to take advantage of me; my confidence waivered. I cried more than I was happy. You left all the major responsibilities to me and continued to take care of yourself, sleeping in all hours of the day instead of spending time with your family. Drinking instead of trying to repair us. Choosing to never give up drinking. Thinking you didn’t have a problem when you really did. You were meaner and sickeningly faux compassionate when drunk. It made my blood boil. I decided to leave, to give you an easy way out and you once again fucking conned me. You provided the illusion of a broken man who would change. But, I knew better. I knew you would never change. You continued to drink and your words became bolder. I decided to start fighting back, matching your words with ones of my own. I didn’t recognize the woman I was becoming. I was becoming spiteful and resentful. I was seeing everyone around me as an enemy. You never touched me or tried to heal us. You laughed in my face about it.

You broke my heart a million times over so I was left with no choice but to break yours. I was left with no choice but to put an end to it. I have to find the person I was before you. Maybe she is gone but so is the woman you ‘loved’ and took for granted. She will no longer be your punching bag. She is FREE. She took the millions of shards and all the power she had left and left you. The strength of all the women hurt by men like you, generations back in her matriarchy, was with her when she packed your things and put them in the driveway. Their spirits were with her when she signed the divorce papers. I am no longer her and I will never be her again. She died that day and she will never be back.