July 01st, 2025

THE SITUATIONSHIP
After I left my marriage, I didn’t fall in love. I fell into fire. It was fast, intoxicating, magnetic,  the kind of connection that lights you up and blinds you at the same time. A passionate situationship that felt like escape, like rebirth, like proof that I was still desirable, still alive. It had been 25 years since I had slept with another man and I never thought I would. It was exhilarating, exciting and all consuming.
But what I didn’t see at the time was how thin the line is between chemistry and chaos. He was charming, yes  but cruel. Belittling in a way that’s hard to put your finger on. Sarcastic compliments, Putting down my business, saying I didn’t do any real work. All subtle digs disguised as humour or concern, chipping away at my confidence while pretending to be supportive. It was manipulation wrapped in charm, designed to make me doubt my worth and question my success. Silent punishments, little jabs that made me question myself. And bit by bit, without realising it, I began to shrink again. I softened my voice. I tolerated things I screamed about in my marriage. I let boundaries blur, not because I didn’t have any, but because I wanted to be loved and desired so badly, I started to forget my own worth.I thought I was in control. But really, I was just lost again. This time in someone else’s storm. I accepted breadcrumb affection. I tolerated low-level cruelty and piss taking masked as banter. I allowed yet another man to dim my light to keep his shining. I will never lose myself like that again. Again, my boundaries were skewered. But I’ve learned passion isn’t the same as respect. Intensity isn’t the same as intimacy. And being wanted doesn’t mean being valued.
Now, my standards are sky high.
Not for how someone looks  but for how they speak to me.
How they show up.
How they honour my boundaries.
How they make me feel when I’m not naked and smiling.
That situationship taught me what I will never tolerate again. Funnily enough it was a word he used to describe me. I was “intolerable” to him. But really I was just a woman with a voice who wasn’t prepared to be quiet. I understand that intolerable often just means "a woman who won’t tolerate nonsense." It means I have boundaries, standards, and a voice I’m no longer afraid to use. If that makes me too much for him, then he was never enough for me. The situationship was a hard, necessary lesson and I don’t regret it. Because from that place of chaos, I found a fiercer kind of self-love. One with teeth. One with a spine.I am certain he has found less with someone else.
It didn’t end with a dramatic goodbye. It ended quietly by text with a message “I don’t find you sexually attractive”. And then I was blocked like I never existed. Erased in a second. That was heartbreak in its most cowardly form. Cruel, cutting, and deliberately designed to wound  and it says everything about him, not me. That text was completely unnecessary. And for a while, it did exactly what he wanted it to: it made me question my worth. My body. My desirability. Everything I had been slowly rebuilding since my marriage ended. I cried for a year. But here’s what I know now: When someone tries to destroy you with words, it’s because they already feel powerless.
That text wasn’t the truth. I know I’m gorgeous. It was a last attempt to humiliate me. He tried to break me but here’s the thing, I am unbreakable.The woman I am now doesn’t stay on the floor. She reads that text, wipes her tears, and writes a book. That man doesn’t get the final word. He most certainly doesn’t get to define my beauty, my physical strength, my worth, or my sexuality.
Excerpt from my book, You're Going to Die so Do It Anway,

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