You’re asking me for another chance, you’re telling me you love me and we are supposed to be a family. That the three of us belong together.

Remember last time I gave us another chance? I went back to Seattle, moved in with you. Everyone told me I was making a mistake. Sure enough I was back in six months. It was worse than before.

You were always so angry. You refused to work, and you stayed home every day drinking. You didn’t want to watch the baby anymore while I was at work, you wanted me to quit my job and stay home with the baby so you could focus on your music. He was too much for you, and you didn’t want to be a babysitter. I’d have to work in the morning and sometimes you wouldn’t come back home from the bar, I’d have to wake your mom up and leave the baby with her. You’d always be out at bars with B-, “we’re working on our music”. When I wouldn’t quit my job you accused me of having an affair with someone I worked with. Why else wouldn’t I leave ? How could I leave? I was our only income and we couldn’t live with your parents forever.

I remember the day I found out I was pregnant again, I was so scared. We were living with your parents, I was the only one working. You were drinking every day and getting high on the weekends. Your anger was off the handle, holes in the wall when the baby would wake us up crying at night, broken furniture when you didn’t get your way. I came home from work and told you I was pregnant, you yelled at me for waking you up and said it wasn’t important we could talk about it in the morning. I told you I wasn’t going to keep the baby. You called me a slut, and when you dropped me off at planned parenthood you wouldn’t stop screaming. You wouldn’t take me home after you wanted to go to a party. I was so sick and in so much pain. I made you take me home and you came back the next day, still drunk and told your whole family how I had an abortion and I was going to hell and how awful I was that I wouldn’t give you another baby.

I still get trapped thinking about the next month, the morning you spit in my face and pushed me down the stairs; just a week before you left for Vegas Father’s Day weekend, when I packed all of my things while you were gone, and went back to my moms. You didn’t come home until 4am, you were drunk and when the baby woke us up in the morning you were so angry. You screamed at him and I got in your face and told you to leave him alone. I remember coming back up the stairs and seeing him hiding under the desk crying, terrified of you. You say you don’t remember, I hope he doesn’t too. It’s been exactly three years now. The distance has mellowed you out, and I’m glad we can have you around, but I’ll never stop being afraid of you.

I remember the day you showed up at my moms, and i wouldn’t let you take W- for the weekend because you were being crazy. I wasn’t going to let him leave with you, i asked you to come back when you were calm. I think about your hands around my neck, that afternoon, when the police had to come and the scratches on my neck. When you broke my phone when I tried to call the police, and I’ve never seen you so angry you told me you wanted so badly to kill me and how easy it would be. That’s when we had to court and it all became a big mess. The restraining order and domestic violence charges. The visitation order you blew off when you left the country . You still tell me it’s all my fault.

I remember the first time I tried to leave you, long before our son, my panic attacks had become daily, you were a bomb and I never knew what would set you off. That night we got so drunk and I told you I was going to leave. You tried to hang yourself in our bathroom, the neighbor called the cops. I was so drunk when the cops came they didn’t care about anything I had to say, they took you and in the morning when you came home you cried and cried and I held you. A month later I finally gathered the courage to leave.

I remember finding out I was pregnant. Four messy years with you, and here I was, pregnant with the child you wanted so you could hold on to me forever. I was finally free or you, living in another state and I had finally gotten away. I should have known better , you wanted us to be a family so bad and I should have run. I’d never take it back, never trade him for anything, but I should have known better. Every day is walking on egg shells with you, you’ve grown to be a better man, in some ways, not all. Our son loves you, and you love him, but I wish you’d go away forever.

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Your words echo in my brain, how you’re the only one who will ever love me. How I’m so fucked up, and how I need to be treated like shit because that’s all I’ve ever known. You blame all the emotional, physical and sexual abuse I dealt with growing up on me, and tell me it’s why fucked up is the only kind of love I deserve. “You love abuse E-, it’s all you’re good for”.

You tell me about all the women you’ve been with since, and how I couldn’t compare to any of them. I’m not as beautiful, I’m not as successful I’m this or that, I’m worth nothing.

I lay in bed at night and think of all the fights, all the ugly words and all the ways you’ve ever let me down, and I truly wonder if you were right when you said I’d never have any more than that.

Nowadays you cry and tell me how much you love me. How all you’ve made is mistakes and you’d give anything to have me back and make it right. You can be so sweet I can almost forget how cruel you truly can be; how can two completely different people exist in one body? He always leaks out the cracks of this better “you”, your temper, your hatred, your narcissistic ways. Ever so slightly at times, sometimes more than others. I can’t be fooled. I won’t be fooled again.

I will never go back to you. It breaks my heart again and again, each time we are together and I play pretend and think about how great we can be. But I can’t forget.

Three years and I’m still learning how to move past this. Not ready to let anyone else in. I’m getting stronger every day; and I don’t need you.

I don’t need you and you hate it!

We try so hard to be friends and coparent but it’s a slippery slope and I am always walking on eggshells.

The space between us is growing, the control you have over me is shrinking day by day.

Someday i will be loved, I will be loved and surrounded by kindness. This will all have been a bad dream.

Until that day; I will grow my love for myself. I will keep pushing forward; growing, flourishing, and you can’t stop me.

I am all I need, I am ok, and I am worthy.