After I return home from a brief escape to Ithaca, where I chased waterfalls and tried to clear my head, reality closes in. The separation from Reginald is no longer just an idea. It’s heading toward divorce, and soon, the house will have to go on the market.

When, exactly, remains a question I can’t answer.

The tension inside our home is thick. Lizzie, my daughter, barely speaks to me. She’s punishing me for keeping a friendship with Reginald, refusing now to even call him her father. I hear her words echo, “I don’t trust you. I don’t feel safe around you,” and the mix of sadness, defeat, and guilt settles in my bones. I tried to assure her: I’m not going back to Reginald; we’re still apart. But I stay civil with him for Reggie’s sake—he still needs his dad. 

Lizzie’s eyes say she doesn’t believe me. She only sees the hurt, the years of pain built up behind these tired walls. Even the house feels defeated—the paint faded, the carpets thin, the floors dull, like it’s quietly giving up right alongside me.

I give Lizzie space to grieve. Betrayal by a man hurts—something I know too well. Forgiveness is supposed to be my grace, but the past clings to me, and I’m still mourning a marriage that ended long before the paperwork was filed.

I linger here longer than I should. Reggie is now 18 and grown. It’s time to stop waiting for miracles and admit that the change I keep hoping for in Reginald might never come.

I know I’ll move on soon, but I can’t quite let go—not yet.

Reggie copes by disappearing into his online games. I recognize that kind of escape. Once, I did it with books, losing myself in romance, fantasy, and dystopian. Anything but my own problems.

I remembered one day when Reggie, eyes teary and red, asked to walk with me outside—away from the rest of the family. He was worried about his father. I tried to reassure him, but nothing settled him. He sensed it too. Everything was about to change, and no one knew if it’ll be for better or worse. All I could do was wait and hope Reginald’s upcoming Arizona retreat brought us something like a miracle.

At least I’ve finished another season in my support group, this one about life after separation. The first season helped me see my pain. The second let me feel and accept it.

Brain-spotting and somatic therapy are helping me unearth the trauma I’ve carried, tucked away in my body for years. Processing it is exhausting. Sometimes I feel like I’m both coming and going, my mind foggy, my body craving sleep, my inner child reaching out for love, and my soul aching for freedom.

Freedom, for me, feels like wind in my hair, sunlight on my skin, a wild urge to run, to shake off these chains keeping me stuck. But I walk, focusing on each step, feeling the gravel beneath my feet, trying to settle my nervous system.

Sometimes I wonder: Am I running toward freedom, or toward life itself? I don’t know. But I keep walking.

I’m not the only one carrying old wounds. My parents, my narcissistic father and co-dependent mother, still live here, complicating everything. I’ve read enough about narcissism to scare myself into thinking I might be the covert type, but therapy reassures me I’m not. Still, I feel it every time my father pushes boundaries, craving a response—any response, even if it’s disgust or rage. My mother just shrugs, insisting nothing can be changed.

Neither of them takes responsibility. The child in me still aches for a mother who actually shows up and chooses me.

I learned their patterns. I learned to chase after love, after validation—to twist myself into someone worth noticing. That’s all I ever wanted: to be seen, to be heard, to feel safe.

When I met Reginald, I thought I’d found that—someone who understood me. In truth, we mirrored each other’s wounds. His unresolved childhood mixed with mine, both of us projecting pain until Lizzie, blunt as ever, called her father a narcissist.

Her words stunned me. I’d seen the signs, but I didn’t want to believe I’d married someone like my father. Reginald could get angry, yes, but he could also love—couldn’t he?

But the constant walking on eggshells, the endless small arguments, the damage—holes in the walls, dented doors. The echoes of my tears dropping onto carpets that absorb my heartache on restless nights. I can’t pretend I don’t remember. I took in everyone’s pain and made it my own.

I know I’ve hurt Reginald too, hiding from conflict when I should have spoken up. Truthfully, we’re both emotionally stunted.

In therapy, I revisit all those moments where I shrank to let him take the space—suppressing my voice for his peace, not mine. Finally, I’m learning to let go of the pain.

When the trauma rises, hot and tight in my chest or gut, my therapist reminds me to ground myself. “Find your neutral spot. Feel your feet on the floor.” So I do until the tension fades.

I breathe, and for a moment, it feels like freedom.

This post is part of a fictionalized memoir. The emotional experiences and themes are drawn from my life, but all names, identities, timelines, and circumstances have been altered, obscured, or combined to protect privacy — including my own. These writings are not meant to diagnose, label, or describe any real person. Instead, they illuminate relational patterns that can occur in emotionally imbalanced or narcissistic dynamics. Any resemblance to actual individuals is coincidental or intentionally obscured. The intention is healing and awareness, not identification. These posts are for storytelling purposes only and do not constitute professional advice.