The Last Time

He won't tell people what he did. He will tell people who you became because of what he did.

Act I: What is love?

It’s you. You’re the problem. If it weren't for your ______ (fill in the blank), this would never have happened. He would never have acted that way.

​And other bullshit he tries to get you to believe…

​By early Friday morning, just hours after you walked out of his place, and out of the prison you had been in for nearly a year, your notifications on your phone are lit up. Missed calls. Missed text messages. Emails. It’s always when you reach your breaking point that he “realizes” he’s gone too far. It’s as if he pushes you closer and closer to the edge of a cliff and is surprised when you jump, leaving him standing there at the edge empty-handed. What did he think would happen when you push someone away? Inevitably, you have nowhere else to go but off the ledge he took you to.

​His realization shows up conveniently too late. Every. Single. Time. It never fully materializes into genuine remorse, let alone safety. The pre-dawn light spills dimly into the room, casting long shadows that clutch the walls. The cold remains insistent, an unwelcome guest that refuses to leave. Within this chill, colors lack vibrancy, and hope curls inward, slipping back into the shadows.

​You got home around 2:00 a.m. on Friday. The remnants of the day before are still fresh on your mind, body, and spirit. Your dog is by your side as you drag yourself and your belongings through the door. She looks up at you as if to say, What next, Mom? Your heart breaks at how you’ve had to drag her through this as well. I’m sorry, baby, you say as you kneel down to stroke the top of her head, holding her soft ears in your fingers momentarily. She looks up at you with devotion and unconditional love in her eyes. You hold her gaze a little longer. I love you, you say to her.

​In the heat of this fight, when his anger from loss of control of the situation ran rampant, he blurted out, I’ve shown you time and time again that I love you unconditionally. There is a glaring difference in what you each think unconditional love is. Your dog’s loyal presence and concerned eyes looking up at you show you clearly how easy it is to love another being unconditionally. The thought of hurting her pains you and breaks your own heart. The love you feel for her is palpable and wants to jump out of your chest. You love her for all that she is. You want to protect her, care for her, and make her as happy and safe as possible. Her comfort and safety consume you, and you would move heaven and earth to make her happy and protect her from harm. You lean forward and kiss her nose. She lifts her head slightly to meet your embrace.

He is wrong. This is what it truly means to love unconditionally, not with dominance but with compassion and understanding. Contrast this with his so-called “unconditional love,” which is marred by control and unfulfilled promises. His love is a love where you constantly need to earn his affection, navigating through his never-ending minefield of conditions and expectations, which are a constantly moving target of demands you cannot meet. His idea of love is one that requires you to forsake your needs, a one-sided agreement where your vulnerability becomes a tool for his manipulation and ammunition for his attacks on you.

Act II: The Erosion

Despite wearing your pajamas on the drive home, you haven't slept. You left in a hurry, before you even made it to bed. When you walk through the door at your place, you’re wide awake, and your nerves are firing on all cylinders. You busy yourself around your home in an attempt to calm down and distract yourself. It isn't until close to 3:00 a.m that you take yourself to bed and try to get sleep. Your mind is still buzzing from the worst fight you two had. Each fight gets worse than the last. Fragments of images dance across a screen in your mind. This is it! He screamed into the phone. Your ears were ringing with the verbal punishment he delivered, the disgust he had for you coming out with every snarl. You need to grow the fuck up! This is insane. You are acting insane! You’re so selfish. Turn around and just come back and stop doing this! The scene replays like a blockbuster action movie. Several months earlier, when you started this film, you thought you were going to see a love story. The joke’s on you. Somewhere, the film reels were swapped, and now you live in a never-ending horror.

​The conversation ended coldly and abruptly that night. Either he ran out of hate to give, or you finally stopped being willing to listen. Or both. You each had been fighting desperately to be heard, clinging to the relationship or to your sanity, while he clung to his ego, defenses, and control with a death grip. He tightened his fist after he pushed you away. Only once he noticed you had slipped away and were falling from his grip of control did he scramble and reach for you again. But it was always too late. This time, you were too far out of reach. He let you go, and he couldn’t get you back. This is how his spiral begins. The cycle of love-bombing and the illusion of remorse attempt to slither in under the guise of “I’m sorry.” It looks like a slow-moving fog through a medieval city; tall, gray stone walls serve as a backdrop for more gray. If you let it in, if you let in his manipulative attempts at reconciliation, you will never see the light of day.

​“I’m sorry” without change is manipulation.

​The night left off with his words piercing you like shards of glass: You’re insane. You’re so fucking childish. This is it! I’m done. By 6:30 a.m. on Friday morning, you read text messages of a different tune than the night before: I love you. Please don't do this to me. Stay. It hurts me so bad to wake up with you not here. Cool off for the weekend and let’s talk after the weekend. It’s you who’s doing this to him. And it’s his hurt that he highlights, that must be your problem to solve. Finally leaving, finally protecting yourself. You're the villain in his story. Your reactions to his actions are often the focus of the “crime.” His selfishness and lack of awareness seep out of every word in his text: It hurts me so bad. How ironic. He’s demanding you acknowledge and soothe his hurt now when just hours earlier, he punished you for yours. Your hurt, and your voicing your hurt, is what led to your walking out the door in the first place. As always, your hurt and pain take a backseat in this equation.

​You’ve had enough.

​Groggy and sleep-deprived, you read his texts on the few hours of sleep that you could muster. Adrenaline still pumps through your veins from the fight and freeway chase that ensued only a few hours earlier. Should I answer? you think, hesitating as the words on the screen blur into one another. Please remember that I love you and want nothing more than to be your friend and companion. I love you. I wish you didn't leave. You scoff and slam your phone down, heat pulsing in your chest as your blood begins to boil.

​In the early light of day, you’re still in bed, and you feel the tightness of rage, hurt, and disappointment re-ignite deep within you. You feel as if the center of your chest is throbbing like a sore wound. Your body and emotions feel tender to the touch. Everything hurts. “Please don't do this to me,” echoes between your ears. You clench your eyes shut tighter as if it can drown out the noise. He’ll have you believe it’s you who is doing this to him. That’s the story he tells himself. You lie there, looking up at the ceiling, willing yourself to fall back asleep. The warmth of your dog’s soft body presses against your torso. You reach for her. Feeling her small foot in your hand is grounding. You begin to stroke your thumbs across the top of her foot. Knowing she is at ease, sleeping peacefully beside you, comforts you in the midst of this chaos. The endless love you feel for this being is as palpable as the searing pain you feel from him.​

I wish this hadn't happened! You think to yourself, screaming inside your head, like a record stuck on repeat. This should never have happened. Your jaw clenched, your hands grip tightly around the sheets that envelope you. You toss one way, then the other. Trying to sleep is as useless as trying to save this relationship, as useless as trying to explain your emotional needs to someone who only wants to manipulate, gaslight, and control. Your needs fell on deaf ears. A wall with no door. No way to get in behind the fortress he built around himself.

His text is flashing through your mind, playing across the screen behind your closed eyes. You realize the irony in his words: I wish you didn't leave. First, your leaving didn't just come out of thin air, as he typically claims your reactions do. You tried to explain this to him countless times, that your hurt is a reaction to him, to his abusive behavior. The walking away, the leaving, the getting sad or angry, those aren't born out of nothing. But your attempts to explain this are futile, and he even uses them as fuel for future criticism: You think you’re so smart, and you’re smarter than me. You use your big words and intellect against me. I don't have all the education like you do. His lack of accountability is too thick to penetrate and hear how any of this is his responsibility, that this is a cause-and-effect scenario. No, it must be because you had feelings and you spoke them into existence. It’s because you left that this fight took place in the first place. But, focusing on I wish you didn't leave is like starting a movie in the middle. You might wonder, wait, why are they running? Who are they running from? Wait, what happened? It’s an incomplete story devoid of any real context. He’s missing what happens upstream.

Each time you re-read his text, I wish you didn't leave, you think to yourself, Funny, because it’s you who left me first. That night, the fight erupted because you were hurt, you shared how his actions or inaction made you feel, and you said you were looking for connection. As it had many times before, it caused psychological and emotional warfare. He responded with pure anger and defensiveness, face scowling, and lips curled in a snarl. He did not hesitate to retaliate.

If speaking up or sharing your feelings with someone leads to disconnection rather than connection, that is not a healthy relationship. If you have to craft what you say before you say it to avoid upsetting them, that is abuse. That is a signal to your psyche that you are not safe here. Being vulnerable will be weaponized against you. Your body and mind process that as “you are in danger.”

In response to your pain when you shared your feelings and came to him for comfort and acknowledgment, he punished you for speaking up: You’re so negative. Why cant you just live and be happy? You make life miserable. Instead of taking accountability for his actions, for being on his phone during dinner when you wanted quality time and connection, he gaslit you and blame-shifted. He violently rejected his responsibility. He rejected any part he played in causing you harm. And by rejecting that, he rejected you, as he had many times before. Rejection is his bread and butter. And you are always first in line for this “reward.”

The thought of this repeated dynamic makes your head hurt, and your stomach turn. It’s as if you have a bruise that can never heal. It’s tender and sore and keeps getting pressed deeper. The shades of pink outline a rich purple where the center of the pain resides. Each word he says is akin to a thumb pressing deeper and deeper. Pain surges through your whole body like an electric current.

An hour goes by. Maybe two. You can’t sleep. By the time you muster the ability to respond to him, you are in a full state of rage. The release of pressure from trying to keep the peace and stay small and silent, skirting around his explosive moods and hate as you’d tiptoe through a minefield. That’s what makes you seem like the crazy one now. He’s calmed down, remorseful, loving, and kind, sitting back “peacefully” while you release hell, a symptom of your hurt. Sure, if you walked in at this scene, you’d seem like the batshit crazy bitch with dramatic emotional tendencies that he has to “put up with.” You think this is just me, he says, I put up with so much from you. It’s not just me. You need to look in the fucking mirror. You’d seem like the angry, abusive one mistreating him, and so he’ll have you believe. But if you took a step back a few scenes and looked upstream, you’d see what transpired before. You’d see this isn’t an initial attack: this is fighting back. This is self-defense and self-protection against a very real threat. Dogs don't bite or show their teeth if they aren't provoked. Empaths and abuse victims don't lose their cool for no reason. And if that’s what you think, then you’re only seeing and believing half of the story.

When you consider the pain that you cause a person, that person’s fault, that’s pure evil. (~Beth Dutton, Yellowstone)

The human mind is wired to respond to threats of danger and unsafety. This is always a truth he refuses to see and to accept. The reason someone is or acts a certain way isn’t because that is how they are. We respond to the environments we are in. If someone creates and demonstrates safety, then we become calm and soft. If someone is vulnerable, it's because of the empathy and nonjudgment you show them when they open up. We are biologically designed to regulate our surroundings: safety, security, calm, danger, attack, pain, suffering. The way you responded to him wasn’t at random. You were under attack, your body sensed danger, and you retreated or fought back for safety. Systematic pain and suffering created instability in you and a need to seek out protection at all costs. So he may give you credit for this, for your anger now, and for leaving, but he must also take credit for the context in which your reactions were born. He deliberately poked the bear. And now there must be no surprise at what happened when the bear woke up. Denying the part he played, using it against you, and claiming your reactions to his actions is the problem; that is the very definition of abuse.

This mirrors a broader cultural narrative where victims of such manipulation are unjustly blamed for their responses, perpetuating myths about personal responsibility that ignore the underlying dynamics of control and manipulation.

Hurt. I am beyond hurt. I’m so exhausted and hurt. I’m sick of being beaten down when I’m trying to connect with you and love you. You feel as if you’re screaming into the void, begging to be heard and understood. Despite your desperation, you know he is too far out of reach. Your wavelengths are completely overlapping.

I’m sorry you feel that way. I’ve apologized. What else do you want me to do?

​I’m sorry you feel that way, you repeat in your head. Nothing says “I’m not sorry” like I’m sorry you feel that way. I'm sorry you feel that way is code for, “fuck off; I cant be bothered with this.” I'm sorry you feel that way, it's really saying, “I’m not actually sorry; I’m just going through the motions so we can move on like this never happened. I'm sorry you feel that way, says, “I’m not sorry at all, not even a little. I have nothing to be sorry for.” And I’m sorry you feel that way, means “You and your feelings don't matter.”

​His fake remorse ran out. Even that has a time limit. Between the lines, he’s saying, “I’ve said ‘I’m sorry,’ so can we move on now? Time for you to get over it and move on. I will no longer hold space for you and your pain.” And that’s exactly how it plays out. Time and time again. When you are still angry and hurt in the first few hours and two days after the worst fight you’ve had, he loses patience with you, your sadness, and your pain. His anger reignites, and his kind, affectionate words fizzle into thin air. He thinks he can control the beginning and the end of your suffering. He’s only half right. He most certainly controls how it starts, as it’s born from his doing. But the ending is what he struggles with. It isn't a light switch you can turn on or off. Your anger, hurt, and pain don't just stop because he gave you an empty apology devoid of any real promise of changed behavior. This part is uncomfortable for him, the part where you need time to heal, hours, days, maybe even weeks to process and rebuild love and trust in him again. If he had it his way, you’d forget the whole thing ever happened the second it transpired. He’d prefer you were a mute robot, empty of deep thoughts or emotions. But, last time you checked, the planets didn't orbit at his command. And your inner emotional landscape is not connected to a circuit controlled by his fingertips. This is something he can’t control: the time it takes for you to heal and repair, to go back to “everything is ok with us.” The lack of control sends him into another rage-fueled spiral. A deadly tornado that will shred anything in its path. His force is strong, and he tries desperately to pull you into his deadly destruction.

​But these are the only things you have in all of this: your emotions, your thoughts, and your reactions. At least those are yours. Those are real. And they are yours to control.

​The tornado gets closer. The wind grows stronger and faster. You feel the walls shake and hear windows rattle. You hold on to what’s yours with a deathgrip, fueled by rage and the hurt he caused, waiting for the storm to pass. Hope for him, for this relationship, shatters like glass around you.

​What else do I want?!?! I wanted this to never happen. I wanted your attention at dinner: the so-called ‘girl of your dreams’ and ‘love of your life.’ I wanted to be able to speak up without the fear of backlash. You pause, catching your breath. Your face tingles and your hands shake. Finally, you add, I wanted you.

​That’s always what it comes down to. You wanted connection. You wanted accountability. You wanted emotional safety. You wanted the person you love, and the person you pour yourself into, to meet your needs. You wanted a reaction filled with care and softness, not defensiveness and manipulation. You wanted a hug. You wanted the bare fucking minimum.

​I wasn’t there for you then. And I'm sorry. But I’m here now. He’s always “here now,” in the aftermath, at the point you walked away to lick the wounds that he gave you. He uses being “here for you now” as his facade for his previous behavior and verbal attacks. I’m not mad. I’m just kicking back. I don't hate you. Now, he’s calm, cool, and collected while you’re in a state of pure anger, hate, and hurt. Everything he says now infuriates you. You know his calm and loving demeanor he has now is only a mask for the villain he truly is. And he still believes his tricks will work on you. He uses your impatience and frustration as ammunition for his next attack: Look at you. Look at how you treat me while I’m kissing your ass. I’ve apologized! But look at you! How long are you going to drag this out? You’re going on with two days of cynics. You’re just pure negativity.

​Negativity. Negativity? What he labeled as “negativity” is your emotional pain and psychological suffering. It is the gaping wound that he created only hours earlier. What he calls “negativity” is his inability to confront accountability and responsibility head-on. Destruction. Here it is. You caused this. This is your mess. Look at it. Study it. Get to know its every knook and cranny. This pain, it’s yours, made by your hands. But he is unwilling and unable to sit in that discomfort. So instead, he punishes you for it.

​Maybe I was defensive. I think I was frustrated from dinner and some of your body language. You were giving me dirty looks. In reality, I truly just wanted to have a good night and enjoy your company. I don't think I deserved the body language or mannerisms from you. So I lashed out.

Your body language. Your mannerisms. Your dirty looks. It always points back to you somehow. His shitty behavior is “your fault.” You are to blame for the damage done. You are the reason he could not regulate his own anger and frustration. You are to blame for the hate that spilled out of his mouth like water spilling over the edge of a pool. Don't mind the momentum that causes the water to leave its container. No, the water poured out all on its own.

Evil. Pure evil. Reactive abuse. This is his weapon of choice. You brace for impact.

​My mannerisms? You mean when I was sad and sulking at dinner? The so-called “mannerisms” that are causing this destruction were you sitting in silence, looking down at your plate, gazing out the window instead of gazing at him while he played with his phone as he checked his fantasy football stuff. Your “body language” was your heart silently breaking, knowing that you aren’t safe in this relationship to speak up and ask for what you need, knowing that your heart was breaking, and that you had to either shove your feelings down or bring them up and deal with his rage. And yet, this is his excuse. A slumped-over, sad girl, with light faded from her eyes because her boyfriend, who claims that she is the love of his life, is too busy watching a football game on his phone to give her an hour of his undivided attention at dinner on the last night they get to spend physically together. This is the threat he felt the need to violently attack.

​According to him, the original sin led back to you. If you cried, you were “unstable,” and dramatic and manipulative. If you stood up for yourself, you were “aggressive” and “not nice to him.” If you brought up how something he did or didn't do hurt you, you were “picking him apart and criticizing him.” The cycle is a common part of the abuse. Your pain is in your reaction, in the anger, hurt, or frustration, and then he points at it like a trophy, as if to say, See? This is why I treat you the way I do. It is a trap designed to make you believe that his peace was your responsibility, while his cruelty was your fault.

The next 2-3 days are a lot like this. A familiar, agonizing loop you’ve experienced before: a morning text that is loving and kind and remorseful–I love you, I miss you, let’s talk through this–a hollow echo of his potential, of the man you begged him to be before he showed you who he really is. The day ends with his impatience with the fact that you are nowhere near over the pain he caused. The sweet texts that started out the day turn sharp again: You need to get over it. I’ve apologized. What else do you want from me? His message was clear: your healing and your pain are an inconvenience he had no capacity for. You know the repair you want, and the repair you need is impossible. He’s shown you that many times.

​You didn't even give me a chance, he manages to say with a straight face. His narcissism is an impenetrable wall between the lies he tells himself and you, and the truth. For him, the grass is greener in the land of illusion.

He’s right. You didn’t give him one chance. You gave him many. Too many to count and keep track of. Is that a joke? You respond, frustration hissing between your teeth, practically stunned at his suggestion. I gave you many chances. Every day was a chance. Last night at dinner was a chance. The fight afterwards was a chance. The day before that was a chance. Every single day was a chance. You emphasize every syllable in every word, as if somehow that will get your point across. It doesn't. And it won't. Even this is part of the pattern of abuse you are shackled to. His abuse, followed by the illusion of remorse and love-bombing, your frustration in response to his ignorance and manipulation, and finally, back at his rage when his tricks fail on you. Your contribution is in the explaining, the begging to be understood, the fighting back for yourself and what you deserve. But there is no winning a losing argument. There is no finding logic in chaos.

It doesn't matter what I may or may not have done when you lashed out. No one is deserving of that. This is a fundamental difference we have about relationships. Because I believe that is never ok.

It’s not ok. He agrees.

I’ve allowed it. I’ve allowed you to treat me this way.

Chances. You are all out of chances. You don't need to give out more chances. Especially not when he had never seized the opportunity before. He let chances slip by, ignoring them as you would ignore clouds in the sky because you know they’ll come back by again. You know you don't need to argue this point with him any longer. You only have to take a look around at the devastation to know that a funeral procession is a better fit than another faulty chance.

Act III: Line in the Sand

There’s one thing you agree with him on: this is it. The last time you accept an empty apology that means nothing but manipulation. The last time you let him twist reality into the story he creates. The last time you shrink yourself to accommodate his rage. The last time you fall for the manipulative trap that has kept you prisoner in this cycle for far too long. This relationship and its abusive pattern have become a routine you memorized. And it’s in this routine where you know you will die.

You pick up your phone and type out the last promise you made to him: That will be the last time.