By the Time I Walk Away, I've Already Forgiven You Too Many Times
People see the moment you finally leave. They don't always see how many times you stayed, forgave, hoped, explained, and quietly broke before you got there.
I've forgiven people for things I would absolutely destroy myself over if I did the same thing to them.
Cheating.
Disrespect.
Being used.
Being ignored.
Being talked down to.
Being told I'm not good enough.
Being told I'm not doing enough.
Being told I'm too emotional.
I've dealt with things from family, friends, relationships, bosses, and people I've loved that I would never dream of putting someone else through.
And somehow, my response has almost always been the same:
Stay.
Stay until it gets better.
Stay because I care.
Stay because maybe they didn't mean it.
Stay because people make mistakes.
Stay because maybe I'm expecting too much.
Stay because maybe I'm the problem.
I stay until I'm at my absolute breaking point and can't take the heartbreak anymore.
And I've started asking myself:
Why?
When Love Made Me Believe I Could Fix It
I think the first time I was completely broken by someone I loved was my first husband.
We were together from our teenage years through a huge part of my early adult life, on and off.
And in the beginning?
It was beautiful.
We were young and completely naive about what life was eventually going to throw at us.
We lived across the alley from each other and rode the bus together.
I made the first move—because apparently, I've always been me. 😂
I wrote him a letter telling him that I always caught him looking at me, but he never said anything. At the end, I basically asked if he liked me.
Turns out, he did.
He was just shy.
At first.
As the years passed, things started changing.
He started getting attention from other girls.
That turned into arguments.
Those arguments sometimes turned into me fighting with the other girls while he enjoyed the attention and the game of it all.
We became on-again, off-again so many times that eventually the happiness and the reasons I had fallen in love with him started disappearing.
Anger took their place.
And somehow my brain decided his behavior must mean something was wrong with me.
Maybe I wasn't doing enough.
Maybe I wasn't pretty enough anymore.
Maybe I needed to give him more attention.
Maybe if I loved him differently, he'd stop.
So when things calmed down for a while, I believed things were changing.
And I gave him another chance.
Then another.
And another.
The Warning I Didn't Want to Believe
On our wedding day, I received an email from another woman saying she'd recently slept with him.
She sent pictures.
I was devastated.
But I didn't want to believe her.
No way.
Not him.
Not after everything we'd already been through.
He told me it wasn't true. He said he was being set up.
And I believed the person I'd spent so much of my life loving.
So I married him.
Looking back, there were warning signs everywhere.
I even overheard members of his family asking if he wanted their keys so he could leave.
And sometimes I look back and think:
How was I so blind?
But I know the answer now.
I had spent such a huge part of my life with this person that walking away didn't feel like simply ending a relationship.
It felt like throwing away part of my own history.
I loved him.
And somewhere inside me was still that belief:
I can change him.
He loves me enough.
Eventually he'll realize what he's doing.
Eventually he'll choose me.
I was wrong.
Then Everything Fell Apart
About a year later, my dad died.
My dad was my best friend.
I talked to him every single day until suddenly...
I couldn't.
Around that same time, I had also experienced a miscarriage.
I was grieving in ways I didn't even know how to explain.
Everything went black.
I couldn't think.
I couldn't sleep.
I couldn't eat.
I felt numb.
Empty.
Alone.
And during all of that grief, my husband cheated again.
This time, I was left dealing with an apartment in our names while the car my dad had recently given me was towed.
And something inside me finally broke differently.
Not the kind of breaking where I cried and forgave again.
The kind where something inside you finally says:
Enough.
That was when I told myself:
I will never let someone treat me this way again.
But “Never Again” Didn't Mean What I Thought It Did
Afterward, I experienced another relationship that became controlling and physically violent.
The first time that violence happened, I ended it.
When he refused to leave and continued hurting me, I defended myself.
And after everything I'd been through, I made another promise to myself:
Never again.
Never trust someone enough to destroy me like that.
Never let someone have that kind of power over me.
Never let somebody see me completely broken because of what they did.
Years later, I tried to understand why my first husband had done the things he'd done.
His answer was basically that he didn't really know.
Maybe it was the chase.
He also brought up the fact that I couldn't have children and he wanted them.
And for a long time, I carried questions about all of it.
Because wanting different things in life is one thing.
Hurting somebody repeatedly is another.
And I still sometimes wonder:
How can someone do so many hateful and hurtful things to the person they're supposed to love?
I don't know if I'll ever have an answer that makes sense.
But I do know what those experiences changed in me.
I built walls.
The Walls Didn't Stop the Hurt
For a long time, I thought those walls meant:
Nobody will ever hurt me again.
Turns out, that's not exactly what I learned.
People can still hurt me.
The difference is that now?
I don't let them see how badly they did.
I shut down.
I stop talking.
I get angry.
I pretend I'm fine.
I start doing everything myself.
I can physically stay right where I am while emotionally putting miles between myself and another person.
And I'll forgive.
Lord knows I'll forgive.
But somewhere in the back of my mind, there's apparently a filing cabinet run by an extremely overworked employee keeping receipts from approximately 2007. 😂
Filed.
Remembered.
Moving on.
Except I'm not always moving on.
Sometimes I'm just adding another hurt to the pile.
I Can Tell You the Facts. Just Don't Ask Me How They Made Me Feel.
This is something I've gotten really good at.
If someone hurts me, I can stand my ground.
I can tell you exactly what happened.
What you said.
What you did.
Why it was wrong.
I will bring facts, dates, supporting evidence and probably Exhibit A through F if you really want to test me. 😂
But ask me:
“Did that hurt you?”
That's different.
Because underneath all those facts is the part I don't want anybody touching.
The heartbreak.
The disappointment.
The I can't believe you were willing to do that to me.
The part of me wondering why someone who says they love me could knowingly do something they knew would hurt me.
So I hide that part.
Because anger feels safer than heartbreak.
Facts feel safer than feelings.
Silence feels safer than admitting:
You mattered enough to me that what you did absolutely destroyed me.
Until I Can't Hold It Anymore
The problem with holding everything in is that eventually there isn't anywhere else to put it.
I can stay quiet for a long time.
I can convince myself I'm fine.
I can keep functioning.
I can clean something.
Work.
Take care of everybody.
Find something else to think about.
And those walls actually do protect me—at least a little.
They keep some of the hurt out.
They help me stand my ground.
They stop me from immediately handing somebody access to the softest parts of me.
But walls don't make feelings disappear.
They just give them somewhere to hide.
And eventually?
I can't hold them anymore.
That's when I shut down completely.
And once I reach that point, something changes in me.
I'm not fighting anymore.
I'm not explaining anymore.
I'm not trying to convince you to understand me.
I'm done.
Bridge burned.
You don't get another argument.
You don't get another chance to explain yourself.
And you don't get to be part of the future I'm trying to build.
Maybe that sounds cold.
But usually, by the time somebody sees that version of me, they don't realize how many chances came before her.
They only see the door close.
They didn't see how long I stood there holding it open.
Sometimes walking away isn't giving up. It's realizing you've spent long enough standing at the door hoping someone would finally give you a reason to stay.
You Didn't Lose Me When I Walked Away
If someone I've cut off ever asked me:
“How could you just walk away like I meant nothing to you?”
My answer would be simple.
Because look how many chances I gave you.
Look how many times I tried to fix the problem.
Look how many conversations we had.
Look how many times I told you what was hurting me.
Look how many times I cried.
Look how many times I forgave something I would've absolutely destroyed myself over if I had done the same thing to you.
You didn't suddenly lose me the day I walked away.
You lost me little by little every time I told you something was hurting me and nothing changed.
That's the part people don't always see.
They see the cutoff.
They see the silence.
They see me stop answering.
They see the moment I finally decide:
I'm done.
And suddenly I'm cold.
I'm heartless.
I'm holding a grudge.
I'm the bad guy because:
“How can you just throw someone away?”
But I didn't.
I held on.
Probably longer than I should have.
I Didn't Burn the Bridge Overnight
It takes a lot to make me completely done with someone.
Probably too much.
I'll forgive.
I'll explain.
I'll try again.
I'll convince myself maybe you didn't mean it that way.
I'll wonder if I'm being too emotional.
I'll question whether I'm expecting too much.
I'll give another chance.
And another.
And apparently my chances come with a subscription plan nobody remembers signing up for. 😂
But they do eventually expire.
Because there comes a point where forgiveness without change stops feeling like forgiveness.
It starts feeling like permission.
And I can't keep teaching somebody that hurting me is okay simply because I love them enough to stay.
So when I finally burn that bridge?
Understand something:
I didn't light the first match.
Usually I've been standing there for years trying to put the fire out.
You Just Don't Have a Future with Me Anymore
Cutting someone off doesn't always mean I hate them.
Sometimes I still love them.
Sometimes I miss who we used to be.
Sometimes I remember the good parts.
Sometimes I wish things could've turned out differently.
But loving someone and allowing them access to me are two different things.
And that's something it took me a very long time to learn.
You can forgive somebody and still decide:
You no longer have a place in my future.
Not as punishment.
Not for revenge.
Not because the relationship meant nothing.
Actually...
Sometimes it's because it meant so much that you spent years trying to save it.
But eventually you have to stop asking:
How many more chances should I give them?
And start asking:
How many more times am I willing to break my own heart just so I don't break theirs?
My answer now?
None.
I've spent enough of my life questioning whether I was pretty enough, good enough, helpful enough, loving enough, forgiving enough.
I've spent enough time hiding heartbreak behind anger and pretending things didn't hurt nearly as badly as they did.
I don't want to live like that anymore.
So if I've explained it...
If I've cried about it...
If I've forgiven it...
If I've given you chance after chance to change it...
And you keep choosing to do it anyway?
Eventually, I'm going to choose me.
And once I do, that isn't me giving up on you.
That's me finally refusing to give up on myself.
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