Navigating Love After Abuse
I got married at 20 years old. I was young, naive, and wide open to love. Too open, perhaps. Surprisingly, I wasn’t one of those little girls who grew up imagining what their wedding day would be like or fawning over Prince Charming.
The idea of marriage was never even something that appealed to me, really. My parents never married, most of my childhood friends were not raised by both parents, and I had more than enough evidence to suggest that partnering with a man was not a great life choice for women, but that’s a story for another time.
Still, I caught the love bug. I fell victim to that all-consuming, fiery, butterflies-in-your-stomach sort of passion that comes from falling deeply in love. Every touch, hug, and kiss was like a hit of the most potent drug you could find. There was something magnetic between us.
I couldn’t stay away… even when it got bad. So bad.
So… dangerous.
See, what these romcoms don’t tell you is that love is not just about fireworks or big gestures or endless passion. It requires something very important for strength and longevity — safety.
Without safety, love is fragile. In fact, can we even call it true love when all the passion is there but you’re afraid to upset the other person?
In hindsight, that’s a clear no.
At the tender age of 20, 22, 24; it wasn’t so obvious.
After crawling out of what slow-boiled into an abusive marriage, I realized love isn’t about intense infatuation — it’s about feeling safe enough to finally exhale.
The Quiet After the Storm
After my divorce, I swore off love. Could you blame me? When you’ve spent years questioning your worth, wondering if the gaslighting was all in your head, the last thing you want to do is jump back into the dating pool. Besides, people are complex and unpredictable. You could meet the best version of someone only to find out months later that they are clinically insane.
But life doesn’t always go according to plan. I met someone — someone kind, gentle, and emotionally available. He was open to connection in many of the ways 20-year-old me was.
He told me stories from his childhood and past relationships that rivaled and often surpassed my own trauma, yet he appeared to have done the necessary work to move through these experiences instead of holding onto the pain associated with them.
He inspired me.
Our first date was a friendly hike on a local mountain path.
We got lost at least twice and ended up on a road with no sidewalk. I remember him touching my waist and guiding me to the inside while he walked next to the road.
It was little things like these at first that made me feel somewhat out of sorts. He was so tender and considerate in ways I didn’t know how to handle.
As our relationship blossomed, he’d go on to consistently open doors for me, ask intently about my day, clean with me, cook with me, ask me about my desires and passions, play with my children… and I’d stare at him waiting for the other shoe to drop.
In my past, love came with a price…and it wasn’t cheap.
Love meant walking on eggshells, making yourself smaller so you didn’t provoke anger. Love was something you earned by staying silent and agreeable. But here, with him, love felt…safe.
And safe felt foreign. Scary, even.
Learning to Trust Again
“I want you to stop saying sorry so much,” he told me over the phone one day as I drove home from picking my kids up from school.
“Sorry,” I replied, out of habit. Then I froze, realizing the irony of my response.
He laughed softly, his calming tone vibrating through the speakers of my car. He was so patient with me.
That’s when the tension hit me — not the tension between us, but the tension inside myself. I didn’t know how to be in a relationship where I wasn’t constantly apologizing for existing. Where love didn’t feel like a transaction I had to earn. I didn’t know how to be in a relationship where I was…allowed to just be.
The truth is, after years of abuse, you learn to associate love with pain. There’s always a catch, a hidden condition, a push and pull. And so, you wait for it to surface. You wait for the anger, for the manipulation, for the emotional whiplash.
But with him, it never came.
And that’s terrifying. Because if this is real love, then I had never known it before.
Unlearning Survival Mode
As time went on, I realized I was still stuck in survival mode, waiting for the man I loved to turn into the monster I was all too familiar with. I overanalyzed every gesture, every text, every quiet moment, trying to find cracks where there weren’t any.
I hadn’t fully came to terms with how deeply my past had rewired my brain for chaos.
One night, we were watching a movie and I kept fidgeting, waiting for him to criticize me for some trivial thing — waiting for that familiar, ugly wave of disappointment that had always crashed over me. He paused the movie, turned to me, and asked, “What’s wrong?”
And there it was. The thing I feared most — being asked to be vulnerable, to speak up instead of shrinking down. I was terrified to let him see how broken I still was.
“Are you okay?” I said, unable to say the real thing I was thinking — that I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to be in a normal, loving relationship.
“Yeah, I’m okay, why?” he said.
“Just wondering.”
“Okay,” he said, pulling me closer to him, kissing my head.
Damn it. Another missed opportunity for intimacy, vulnerability, transparency.
Not only was it a struggle to handle the contrast between what I had been trained to believe love was and this very clear example of what it actually is… it was immensely difficult for me to voice this to the man I thought so highly of.
I didn’t want him to think I was damaged goods.
Redefining Love
I’m still unlearning those survival mechanisms.
Still working those vulnerability muscles.
Still trying to catch myself when I apologize too quickly or expect the worst from someone who has only shown me kindness.
I’m learning that love doesn’t always have to be a battlefield, despite what Pat Benatar says.
Love, real love, isn’t about fireworks or walking on eggshells. It’s about feeling safe enough to let your guard down, to show the bruises and scars and not feel ashamed.
It’s about allowing yourself to exist fully, flaws and all, and knowing that the right person will hold space for you — without conditions.
And even as I write these words to you, I am doing the work to embody them fully.
I still struggle.
Only now, when I catch myself waiting for the storm, I remind myself: the storm isn’t coming. Because love, the kind of love I have now, is the calm that follows. It’s not about surviving anymore. It’s about thriving.
Finding Peace
From this journey, I now understand that love isn’t found in the chaos. It’s in the quiet moments, the ones where you don’t feel like you need to apologize for taking up space.
“Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome.” — Brené Brown
And that’s what I’m putting into practice — showing up for love on my terms, knowing that this time, I’m enough just as I am.
And, taking it ONE DAY at a time.
Thank you for reading my very first piece of published work. I love writing and intend to do a lot more of it on this platform. Let me know what you think in the comments :)
