It's been a year and half now since I finally left, when it finally became too much. Which you might realise was about the same time the pandemic hit. The problems began well before then of course, what I didn't realise at the time was that his failure to get the medical and mental health help he needed was because he was in hiding. The guy I spent six years with, that I spent a good portion of that time trusting, loving, caring for, was actually on the run from the police and had been doing so for a good ten years.
I am still in the slow process of understanding just how he slowly manipulated me and healing from that, learning from it so I know and aviod the signs if it ever happens again and also undoing the damage he has done to me on a mental and emotional level. It's hard because I had built up such a picture in my mind of how things should have gone. I feel like I am grieving and I am greiving the dream, if that makes any sense and I am dealing with the depression that is a result of the fact my life at 40 doesn't look remotely like the one I envisioned.
