I am leaving a relationship with someone who is deeply closed off and functions in a very particular way — one that, for a long time, caused me pain and confusion.
It was not a relationship filled with arguments, betrayal, or drama.
From the outside, it looked… normal. Stable.
There was loyalty. There were shared responsibilities.
But there were no emotions. No invitation to closeness.
There was no space for my needs, my feelings, or for a shared sense of “us”.
And although I tried for a long time to understand it and adapt myself to that rhythm, over time, I began to feel more and more invisible.
I fought for us. For connection. For a response.
So much that, somewhere along the way… no, I did not lose myself.
The truth is, I had never really known myself.
I was whoever others wanted me to be. A daughter, a partner, a strong woman who could cope with anything.
This relationship came into my life when I was already a mature woman, shaped by difficult experiences and carrying a great deal of emotional baggage.
This was not the story of a teenager falling in love for the first time.
It was the story of a woman approaching forty who believed that this time, things would be different.
That she already knew what she wanted. That perhaps, at last, there would be peace.
And yet… this relationship showed me something entirely different.
In my heart, I think I made the decision to leave several years ago. But my heart and my rational mind could not come to an agreement. Reason kept telling me to stay, because there were so many reasons why I should…
Eventually, they did come to an agreement.
After several months of conversations, planning, and working out a strategy, just before Christmas, the decision was made: after the New Year, we would tell the world.
And that is what happened.
In February, I left the relationship emotionally and physically. I approached the conversation calmly and with a plan, believing that this time it would work, that this was the right moment.
And it did.
We let each other go. Perhaps at first, I did so more than he did, but with every passing day, I felt more strongly how right that decision had been.
It did not feel as though the decision had been made only by me. But I was the one who finally found the courage — or perhaps simply no longer had the strength to keep pretending — and allowed us both to leave.
But life did not allow us to separate immediately.
The house still connects us…
Only now, several months later, have I found the strength to move into another room.
Only a few metres away, and yet it was a step that had been growing within me for a very long time.
I no longer fight.
I no longer wait.
I no longer try to earn anything.
It was this relationship — its silence and loneliness — that forced me to truly meet myself.
In that silence.
In letting go.
In making space for myself.
Because although this relationship hurt me, it also showed me something important.
That I am allowed to put myself first.
Without explaining myself. Without softening what feels uncomfortable.
This is not about selfishness.
It is about understanding that if I do not put myself first, no one else will do it for me.
And that is exactly what I finally understood.
This is how Simply Me was born.