Veronica

The first year I lived out here was a challenge. I didn’t know anyone, and I didn’t know much about the area. I used social media to find decent places to eat and bought a new wardrobe because nothing I’d brought had prepared me for the swampy weather that lasted most of the year.

Thanks to some old connections in New York, I picked up gigs dealing poker and blackjack for a few entertainment companies while I looked for a steady job. Mostly company parties, holiday house parties, and the occasional birthday or retirement community event.

It was at one of the charity events that I met Simon.

He was the event chairman—charismatic, funny, and decent. He asked for my number and took me out several times. The whole thing was what I’d call a whirlwind romance, and for once, I allowed myself to get swept up in it. Within six months, I’d moved out of my best friend’s mother’s place, and we were living together. By the time we’d known each other a year, he’d asked me to marry him.

Normally, I would have been suspicious of how quickly things were moving. I did have reservations. In the back of my mind, there were doubts I couldn’t quite silence. But I was caught up in the romance of it all.

I also wasn’t getting any younger, though I would never have admitted out loud that it factored into my decision.

I said yes.

I wanted to remember the moment, so I took a photo of our hands together and posted it on my socials.

By then, I’d found a job and started getting to know people at work, but I was expected to come straight home every night. At first, that seemed fine. It also made building friendships outside the office difficult. He never expressly said that my time belonged to him and his family, but any attempt to spend it elsewhere made his expectations clear.

Once, he tried turning it around on me. How would I feel if he went out to dinner with his friends?

“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” I told him. “It would be good for you to spend time with them.”

“Without you,” he pressed.

“You need time with your friends, too. I trust you.”

He seemed more disgruntled by my being fine with it than he would have been if I’d objected.

Then came the belittling.

Simon was ten years older than me, and whenever he felt he was losing a discussion, he liked to hold that over me. In his mind, being older, watching the news, and calling himself a “student of history” made him the authority on political matters. There was little room for lived experience or the idea that people’s needs changed as the world around them changed.

When he couldn’t convince me he was right, he would shout, “Shut up!”

That was his rebuttal.

Eventually, I stopped arguing. The discussions weren’t worth my peace of mind.

In later years, I withdrew altogether. I no longer felt safe talking to him about things because it almost always left me stressed. He would criticize me or talk to me as though I were a child who couldn’t possibly understand anything.

I was forty years old.

Even trying to help could set him off. When he complained about headaches and muscle spasms, I suggested drinking more water. I knew how little he drank and thought dehydration might be contributing to his symptoms.

He dismissed the suggestion as nonsense.

Then his doctor told him he was dehydrated and needed to drink more water.

On another occasion, knowing his medical history, I suggested a supplement for his stomach issues. He dismissed that, too. But when his ex-wife, who had experienced something similar, suggested the same thing, he listened.

It happened often enough that I came to expect it. Anything I said could be brushed aside, only to become worth considering when someone else said it.

It made me feel small. And increasingly alone.

I’d thought about leaving, but our financial situation made it difficult. Most of my paycheck went to him for my half of the shared bills. What remained covered my personal debts, the services I paid for, and everyday necessities. There wasn’t much left to save. Whatever extra I managed to set aside usually carried me through the months when annual bills came due.

When I asked to take over managing the bills, he resisted. Eventually, I stopped asking.

I didn’t understand it then, but I was being dismantled piece by piece.

One day, he lost his temper and threw me out of the car, leaving me to walk home. I didn’t have a key, so I had to wait outside while he went somewhere to eat. Only when he finished his meal and finally came home could I get back into our house.

When I was sick and bleeding for months, he made me feel ashamed to sleep in my own bed.

He was more concerned about the bedsheets.

Then, one day, I tried to return to something I loved.

Acting.

I wanted to pursue my passion again, and he made me feel as though I was chasing something I had no business wanting. As though I wasn’t good enough. Before I met him, I’d earned a living doing exactly that in New York, yet he kept trying to discourage me.

He wanted everyone to believe our life was all roses. And the one time an article was written about me after we married, he wanted it taken down.

I didn’t want to give up this last piece of myself.

Before I started acting again, I’d felt hollow. At first, I hadn’t understood why. Each concession had seemed small enough on its own. Only when I reached for something I loved did I begin to understand how much I’d already surrendered.

It wasn’t all bad. There were beautiful parts, too. There was a reason I’d said yes when he asked me to marry him. But those reasons were no longer enough to make me stay.

I’d spent years making myself smaller to be accepted. Returning to acting meant allowing myself to want something again—and discovering how little room there was for what I wanted.

I was finally breathing again. And I couldn’t keep shrinking to fit the life we’d built.