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The last fight certainly wasn’t the worst. It was just the last straw.
He never laid a finger on me - never even lifted a hand. And I knew that he would never hurt me.
Yes, adults in loving relationships (married or not) argue.
But these did not feel like arguments -- they were fierce and regular. They typically started as a silent treatment to show disapproval and were then followed by a spewing of vitriolic words that left me quaking and unsteady - oral hits to my character, my loyalty and my choices.
Although I would never consider myself much of a confrontational person, I threw the verbal blows right back at him in defense.
In the end, we would sit back down and talk rationally again until all settled out and our relationship world was whole again.
Until the next time.
That is not to say that the relationship wasn’t good. It was great – wonderful, in fact. For much of our time together, he doted on me like a princess and treated my boys as his own.
In the back of my mind though, I was always just waiting for the other shoe to drop, because I rarely knew what the trigger was going to be.
I had always said that one of the things I loved about him was that I could be myself and never had to pretend to be someone I’m not. After every fight though, I was less myself and more someone who was functioning to avoid the next big one.
That’s not a way to live.
Like anyone who’s ever played the stock market knows, this relationship had been an investment – for me and my kids. We had already invested over two years of life, love and emotion.
Relationships can be both a reward and a risk. And there comes a time when we must decide whether the volatility that often comes with it is worth it, regardless of how it performs throughout the rest of the year.
When faced with a choice between teetering on the edge of a crash and getting out of that position, I chose the latter.
Would I be willing to buy in again? Sure, I’d consider it. But not without the utmost confidence that the volatility issues have been resolved.