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Chapter 7: The Betrayal
Although I could feel my heart pounding, I opened the email—which felt sterile and cold.
Clicking on the attachment, my eyes raced across and down each line—stopping at the very end just long enough to start all over again—feeling the sand shift beneath my feet.
Line by line, I scrambled, searching for everything that wasn’t there. Everything that he had promised for almost a decade, without intending any of it.
What was happening? Had I really believed someone that simply told me what I wanted to hear? Had I believed him over my own instincts? And if so, had I even valued his life more than my own?
And then I finally let my eyes rest on the last two sentences—the very ones he hoped I’d overlook, like everything else. And just beneath them, a signature line. Waiting for me to fall in place.
No conversation, no discussion, no explanation, just the confidence in his overtures, that I would concede.
Why would he ask me to waive all my rights as a wife?
Regardless of the answer, all I knew was that any man wanting less for his wife then she legally deserved, told me everything I needed to know.
How long had I waited for a legal document to tell me something that I’d sensed for years? And why now after a trip of a lifetime?
My blood went cold, refusing to follow his rules any longer.
Rules that kept me from wearing my engagement ring in his office.
Rules that kept my picture hidden away in his desk drawer.
Rules that kept us from announcing our engagement at the last family gathering.
Rules asking me to sign off on a million-dollar life insurance policy—a year before we were even married— making him my benefactor.
And rules that kept his financials off limits, even to my lawyer.
For years I followed his rules—tactics, it seemed he’d learned from the book, The Art of War.
“Timing is everything Warrior. In order to get them before they get you, you will need to be very patient. Let the enemy get very close.”
I could feel black ink moving through my veins, stealing something from deep within. Something I didn’t realize would hurt me more than it would ever hurt him.
Next week Chapter 8: Vantage Point.
I didn’t know it at the time, but what I was experiencing had a name: betrayal trauma.
It happens when someone you trust—someone you’ve emotionally tethered yourself to—violates that trust in a way that collapses your internal compass.
It’s not just the betrayal of what was done. It’s the betrayal of your own instincts.
Because the deeper truth was—I had seen the signs. I had felt the feelings. But I didn’t trust them.
When you’re conditioned to be accommodating, agreeable, “understanding,” you learn to override what you know.
We rationalize red flags.
We excuse power plays as personality quirks.
We trade our intuition for the hope that love will win.
And the truth is—I didn’t even realize I was doing it. Not then. These were patterns I’d learned. Ways of surviving that felt familiar, automatic—like something passed down, not chosen.
But there was one part I hate to admit I admired:
The way he broke rules.
The way he didn’t wait for permission.
The way he ignored expectations and did what he wanted.
It touched something in me I hadn’t yet claimed: agency.
I thought I was admiring confidence—without realizing it was control.
But truth doesn’t negotiate. And once it shows up, it doesn’t leave.
It waits—until you’re ready to stop agreeing with the lie and finally become who you were designed to be.
For years, I’d backed away from the question: What do I really want?
Not because I didn’t care, but because I honestly couldn’t answer that question.
It wasn’t denial—it was a blind spot. One that was protecting me from something I wasn’t ready to see.
For a long time, I envied the people who could name their desires out loud. I saw the clarity. The freedom. The power that came from knowing what they wanted and planning what came next
By this time, I didn’t just feel the weight of lacking clarity. I felt the weight of what it had already cost me.
Eight years with the wrong person.Decades in the wrong careers. And a lifetime passed to my daughter—watching me betray myself so quietly that she started doing the same.
That was the moment something in me hardened and rose. Not in bitterness. But in conviction.
No more.
If I couldn’t change the past, I would do whatever it took to change the future—starting by finally answering the question that had evaded me my entire life: What do I really want?
Everything I’d done up to that point hadn’t been enough.
The therapists. The coaches. The self-help books. The weekend retreats and personal growth seminars. Living on a budget, but still prioritizing the search—trying to uncover what didn’t want to be seen.
There was something deeper at play. And in the wake of betrayal, the fear that had once stopped me lost its power.
Whatever I needed to face, fight, or conquer—I was ready. Determined to do whatever it took to break free from the lie that had held me back until now.
When the truth finally lands, it changes everything.
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