Time continued moving forward, and my children grew and blossomed. Eventually, I opened myself to the possibility of dating again.
Dating was rough.
I was an easy target for narcissistic men, and over the years I endured emotional and verbal abuse disguised as affection. Many dates left me feeling diminished rather than valued. Only a handful of the men I met were genuinely kind.
One young man I dated was especially sweet. He was a single father raising a beautiful two-year-old daughter. He saw my grief and didn’t run from it. Instead, he listened. He allowed me to speak about Paul without judgment or discomfort. The timing simply wasn’t right for us, but I have never forgotten him. Even now, he remains in my heart, engraved on my soul.
In late 2010, I met a young military interpreter from Iraq. He quickly became one of my closest friends. We spent weekends exploring together, sharing stories about our lives, and learning about each other’s cultures. He introduced me to some of his closest friends, and together we enjoyed a traditional Iraqi meal that remains one of my favorite memories.
Like the others who mattered most, he never minimized my grief. He listened when I spoke about Paul and honored his memory alongside me. From the beginning, we both understood that our relationship was temporary. He encouraged me to keep living, to continue dating, and to remain open to finding love again.
Soon, he was deployed to Iraq for a year. Though miles separated us, we stayed connected through letters and emails, maintaining a friendship that meant more to me than he probably ever knew.
Then, in the middle of 2011, life introduced another unexpected chapter.
I met an English teacher at my niece’s high school, and we began dating.
He made me feel special. We spent hours talking about books, history, and all the subjects that fascinated us both. For the first time in a long while, I felt truly seen. My family noticed the change in me. They saw how happy I was, how often I smiled when his name appeared on my phone, and how hopeful I seemed about the future.
But while I was falling in love, they were noticing things I could not see.
In October 2011, we were married in a beautiful fall wedding surrounded by family and friends. I believed I was beginning a new chapter, one filled with the kind of partnership and companionship I had longed for.
The first year of our relationship had felt like a dream. His attention was constant, his affection overwhelming. He made grand promises, showered me with compliments, and convinced me that I was the center of his world. Looking back now, I recognize it for what it was: love-bombing. At the time, I believed I had finally found the kind of love I had experienced with Paul—a love that felt safe, unconditional, and enduring.
Then, slowly, things began to change.
The red flags that had once been easy to overlook became harder to ignore.
The first signs appeared in subtle ways. There was no dramatic argument or defining moment. Instead, a slow isolation began. Time with my family became less frequent. Friendships that had once been important seemed to create tension in our relationship. Little by little, the circle of people I relied on grew smaller.
In the fall of 2012, we both began teaching in the same school district. At first, it felt like a blessing. We shared the same schedule, the same holidays, and many of the same experiences. I believed it would bring us closer together.
Instead, it gave him greater access to my daily life. The boundaries between my work life and home life began to disappear, and before long, I found myself being monitored, criticized, and questioned in ways I had never experienced before.
At the time, I explained away each incident. I told myself every marriage had challenges. I convinced myself that if I loved him enough, communicated better, or tried harder, things would improve.
I did not yet understand that the man I had fallen in love with was slowly being replaced by someone else.
The jealousy began to reveal itself in ways I never expected.
If I spent too much time with my family, he became resentful. What had once seemed like a desire to be included slowly transformed into frustration whenever my attention was focused on someone other than him. Family gatherings, visits with friends, and even ordinary moments with my loved ones often became sources of tension.
What hurt most was that his jealousy extended to my own children. Instead of appreciating the bond I shared with them, he sometimes seemed to view the time and energy I devoted to them as something that was being taken away from him.
My grief for Paul became another battleground. For years, I had carried Paul’s memory with me—not as a replacement for the future, but as a cherished part of my past. Whenever I expressed sadness or spoke about him, it often triggered anger and insecurity. During one particularly painful conversation, he told me that I had him “competing with a dead man.”
His words stunned me.
Paul was not a rival. He was a chapter of my life that had ended in tragedy, a person I would always love and mourn. I wasn’t asking anyone to compete with him. I simply wanted the freedom to remember him without guilt.
Yet from that point forward, I began to realize that my grief was no longer being met with compassion. It was being treated as a threat.
He was able to manipulate and control me, in part because he learned where my deepest wounds were. Years of grief, loss, and struggling with my own self-worth had left vulnerabilities I did not fully recognize. He knew exactly when to offer affection, when to withdraw it, and how to make me question my own perceptions.
Over time, I began to lose confidence in myself. I second-guessed my decisions, my feelings, and even my memories. The woman who had survived unimaginable loss slowly became someone who was constantly seeking approval and trying to avoid conflict.
Looking back, I can see the pattern clearly. At the time, I could not.
For eight years, this narcissistic man was a constant presence in my life. The manipulation was rarely obvious. It came in small doses—criticism disguised as concern, control disguised as love, and guilt disguised as devotion. Little by little, the person I had once been became harder for me to recognize.
The most painful part is that I stayed because I believed things could return to the way they had been in the beginning. I kept hoping the man I fell in love with would reappear. I did not yet understand that the version of him I was chasing had never truly existed at all.In 2019, the life we had built together finally began to unravel.
Earlier that year, we separated. After years of manipulation, control, and emotional turmoil, something inside me had changed. The hold he once had over me was gone. The fear, guilt, and self-doubt that had kept me trapped were beginning to lose their power.
He resigned from his position at the school district that same year, and our lives started moving in different directions.
Leaving was not easy. Eight years of being told who I was, what I should think, and how I should feel had left scars. But for the first time in a very long time, I began listening to my own voice again.
I realized I could no longer survive in a relationship built on control rather than love. I deserved more than a situationship filled with manipulation and emotional uncertainty. I deserved respect. I deserved peace. I deserved to be valued for who I was.
Most importantly, I realized I was stronger than I had ever given myself credit for.
For years, I had believed I was broken.
I wasn’t.
I was finally finding my way back to myself.
Ebbs & Flows 