Once we repaired things - The text that changed everything - Part 4

There is a kind of silence that doesn’t feel peaceful.

It feels wrong.

After we repaired things, there was a brief period where everything felt calm.

Work was overwhelming, we were short-staffed, and I had stepped into a role where I was managing a team and dealing with constant requests from multiple schools. It was intense, but I told myself we would get through the operational pressures and sort everything else out later. It was the beginning of a new year, and for that short period, I allowed myself to feel hopeful. (This is what peace and calm felt like for me, despite busy chaos at work at the time - http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2025/01/january-2017-i-felt-peace-that-all-was.html). 

It was a Friday.

Paul and I went to see a movie.

A beautiful film. A hopeful one.

I didn’t realise at the time how surreal that would become — how my own life was about to unravel just as abruptly.

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When we walked out of the cinema and headed toward the car park, I noticed it.

A look on Paul’s face.

Subtle, but unmistakable.

It seemed to me that something was on his mind.

I have always been sensitive to shifts like that. Sometimes I question whether that sensitivity is a gift or a burden, because every time I have dismissed that feeling, I have paid for it. On that night, I chose to dismiss it. I told myself it was nothing. There was nothing I could do anyway if something was on Paul’s mind that he had not chosen to share.

Saturday passed quietly.

By Sunday, the silence had settled in, and it didn’t feel normal.

It felt like something was wrong.

Not dramatic. Not explosive.

Just… off.

The kind of silence that speaks.

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It wasn’t until the following Friday, from memory, that the most frightening text I had prayed God would spare me from, arrived.

Not a conversation. A text from Paul.

He told me that his ex-girlfriend wanted to try again. He said that he had strong feelings for me, but that he also had strong feelings for her. He said he needed time to think about his future and to follow his instinct. He ended the message by saying that whatever he decided, he hoped I would be happy.

I did not know how to respond.

In that moment, I did what so many women are conditioned to do. I made it easier for him.

I replied to Paul’s message and said it was okay. I told him to take his time and think about his future. I reassured him. I told him he was a good person. I said things that would not challenge him, because I did not know what else to do.

Because that is what we are taught, isn’t it? To protect his feelings. To manage his ego. To make it comfortable for him, even when we are breaking inside.

But the truth was, I was in tears. I was shaking. I was scared.

By this stage in my life, I had turned 40. This was not casual for me. This was my life too. My future too. My last real hope of building a family after everything I had already been through.

And in that moment, my future felt like it had been placed in the hands of someone who, at that moment, showed no regard for it, and no regard for how his message would affect me.

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The following day, I was meant to celebrate a friend’s birthday. She had organised a yacht for a group of us on Sydney Harbour. We had all contributed, and I had been looking forward to it. I had never been on a yacht before.

In hindsight, I should have stayed home.

Instead, I went, and I sat in a corner of that boat trying to hold myself together. I was overwhelmed with fear and emotion. I was trying not to cry, trying to pretend I was okay, but I was not okay.

It did not matter how beautiful the harbour was.

Sitting in one of the most beautiful places in the world, while everything inside me was falling apart

When something like that happens, it comes with you.

Everywhere.

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I did not know what to do with what I was feeling. There was fear, anger, humiliation, confusion, and a deep sense of powerlessness. Paul had made it clear that he would take time to think about his future, and that whatever he decided, I was expected to accept it.

There was no space in that message for me.

No space for how I felt. No space for what it would do to me.

So I started texting him. Message after message. Not in a calculated way, but in fragments. It was the only way I could release what I was feeling in that moment.

I WAS ANGRY. I WAS HURT. I WAS SCARED!!!!!

FOR SO MANY REASONS!

I told Paul how it made me feel. I told him that I thought he was different, that I had felt safe with him, and that I believed he was kind.

Because I did believe that.

And that is what made it worse.

Later, Paul described my messages as “going nana.” From my perspective, that was not what it was. 

It was someone trying to be heard after being shut out of a decision that directly affected her life.

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The next day, I received a message from Paul.

Short. Final.

“That’s it. We’re done.”

I asked him to please let me speak. I wanted the opportunity to have a conversation. To express how I felt. To be heard.

Paul’s response was, “Just accept it.”

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Just accept it.

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I had been denied a voice. I had been denied the basic dignity of being heard in something that affected my life so profoundly.

What stayed with me was not just the way it ended, but what followed.

“I regret not speaking with you, but I still would have done it because I had a history with my ex.”

That was in July 2017. 

I am still shaken by the trauma of that call.

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At the same time, I was reliving the deepest trauma of my life — the loss of my dad — and the lack of sensitivity from the community around it. I was also severely burnt out at work, struggling, and in an environment that I would later come to understand was harming me - caused by a manager who had reaped benefits from my work since 2001. 

(See http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2024/09/part-2-suicide-and-greek-orthodox-church.html regarding what was going on in July 2017 when the quote above was yelled at me - it’s an emotionally charged post because it IS emotional. But I’m expected to just ACCEPT all this secondary trauma caused by inhumanity and pretend I’m fine. This is the shitty expectation of disenfranchised grief! See also http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2024/09/part-1-suicide-and-greek-orthodox-church.html. How many more layers am I expected to carry in this self-centred, insensitive, fucked up world, all alone, and expected to be fine!!!???)

(And also, the workplace exploitation had started to happen at the same time as the shitty text - http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2024/07/bullying-discrimination-and-harassment.html)

And in the middle of all of that—

This.

All of this was happening at the same time.

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I had already fought so many battles.

And in one moment — one message — everything I had held together…

detonated.

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I had already been walking on eggshells. After his earlier overreaction, I found myself constantly questioning how Paul would interpret what I said, whether I would be misunderstood, and what reaction I might trigger.

And yet, I stayed.

Because I cared.

If I did not care about him or my future, I would not have stayed.

But when it mattered most, I had no say in it.

That is what is truly painful.

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I was not treated like a person.

I was treated like an option. A backup plan. Something that could be set aside while Paul decided what he wanted, with the expectation that I would simply accept the outcome.

I have never treated anyone that way.

And being treated like that did not just hurt.

It changed something in me.

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Because when you are treated as disposable enough times, you start to question whether that is how the world sees you.

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I have survived a lot.

But no one should be forced to live with endings like that.

Not without a voice.

Not without dignity.

Not without being heard.

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Kindness and respect are not complicated.

But the absence of them can leave damage that lasts a lifetime.

To be continued…