Being married to someone who broke me didn’t shatter me all at once. It was slower than that. Quieter. It started with the way I second-guessed myself mid-sentence, the way I shrank a little when I laughed too loud, or hesitated before sharing something that once would’ve poured out of me without shame.

It wasn’t bruises. It was erasure. The kind that doesn’t show up in pictures but echoes in the pause before I say what I really mean. He didn’t have to raise his hand. All he had to do was raise his tone, roll his eyes, twist my words until I started twisting myself.

By the time I left, I wasn’t just heartbroken – I was hollow. Not because I stopped feeling, but because I stopped believing my feelings mattered. I lost the sound of my own truth under the weight of trying to keep the peace.

And now, even in safe spaces, I sometimes catch myself apologizing for speaking. For needing. For taking up too much room. Because when someone chips away at you for long enough, you forget you were ever whole.

But I was. I am. I’m just learning the shape of myself again. Word by word. Breath by breath. Without asking for permission this time.