Days when it felt lighter.

The ultimate abuse.
Getting another to believe that they cannot even breathe without their abuser.
Furthering the tie, no, chains, to them.
I fully and completely believed him when he said I was nothing without him.
People who knew me before and those who’ve met me since usually stammer to imagine me that way.
But like most abuse, it’s a slow in and an even slower out.
Until the resolve to leave becomes bigger than the need to stay, like an addict to a drug, we remain at their disposal.
Whether through fear, brain-washing, physical attack, financial and personal isolation, mental weakening, and a myriad of other ways, or a combo of several, they control and manipulate exactly what they want and how they want it.
Our lives no longer our own.
There is no other explanation viable in my mind to say that the man who loved me, in fact, hated me instead.
Years ago I prayed that if I ever got retribution, any type of an apology even, that I would be so healed that I wouldn’t need it.
I can’t tell you when it was exactly, there was no loud boom in the sky, absolving him, or myself, just days when it felt lighter.
When I would realize it had been hours then days since I was plagued with fear and thoughts of him.
Today, I feel compassion for him. More and more I think about how awful he must have felt about himself to ever treat another human that way.
I think of the little him, a baby with a good heart until life happened and he grew hateful and mean.
I have released him from my anger and grief, without him or an apology because I was the only one that it was hurting.
I never had to tell him, I just slowly let it go.
I will never hold my breath for another, I will never let go of me again.
It's a long and arduous process but there is hope.