When Love Isn’t Love: My Journey Through a Hidden Kind of Abuse

For nine years, I was in a relationship with someone I believed was my best friend, my soulmate, my everything. I confided in him fully, trusting him with every part of me even the parts that were broken, fragile, and still healing. I thought love meant full transparency, but I didn’t know that one day, those same vulnerabilities would be used against me.

Looking back, I was the one who led us. I built our life I found us homes, secured cars, and made sure we had everything we needed. I was the one mowing the lawn, building furniture, fixing whatever broke. He, on the other hand, often stood by watching or playing video games. I put him first time and time again, always hoping he’d one day return the same kind of energy. But that day never came.

At first, he was loving, affectionate, and kind everything I thought I needed. But something always felt… off. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but deep down, I knew I was slowly losing myself. Still, I stayed. I thought love meant sacrifice. I thought relationships meant riding through the storm, even if you were the only one holding the umbrella.

When I finally began to pull away, the manipulation became clearer. He used emotional blackmail threatening suicide just to keep me from leaving. It was terrifying. I had been in an abusive relationship before, and I thought I had escaped that part of my life. I didn’t realize that this, too, was abuse—just a different kind. Emotional. Psychological. Draining.

The moment that shattered everything was when he used my trauma the deepest pain I had ever shared with him to try and hurt me. That was the line. That was the moment I realized love shouldn’t feel like betrayal. That love doesn’t manipulate, doesn’t guilt, doesn’t diminish.

Yes, I made mistakes. I cheated. Not because I wanted to hurt him, but because I was desperate to feel something I hadn’t felt in years seen, wanted, worthy. I know now that I deserved more than what I was settling for. Love is not just about who you grow with, but also about who holds your soul gently when it’s most fragile.

I’ve learned that healing begins when you stop making excuses for someone else’s pain becoming your prison. I will never go back. I won’t even be friends with someone who saw my trauma as a weapon instead of something to protect.

I hope you read this and realize: Congratulations.

You hurt me just as deeply as I may have hurt you.

But the difference is I won’t stay down.

You will watch me rise from the very ground you tried to break me on.

Stronger. Wiser. Unshakable.

This isn’t a story of regret it’s a story of reclaiming my power. And if you’re reading this, and any of it feels familiar, know that you deserve more too. Love should never cost you your peace.