Peanuts & Bologna Studios

It’s true…

It’s so true….

I don’t love him the way I loved you.

But what I’m finally understanding is that the love I had for you was built on survival. It was stitched together with anxiety, with walking on eggshells, with trying to earn moments of warmth that should have been given freely. I loved you in a way that felt like bracing for impact. I loved you like someone trying to stay safe inside a storm.

The love I had for you was tangled up in fear. It was shaped by conditions, by the unspoken rule that kindness only came if I stayed small enough, agreeable enough, quiet enough. If I swallowed my hurt fast enough. If I didn’t question too much. If I didn’t react to the shouting. If I pretended not to notice the way your fist met the car’s windshield when I showed even a flicker of discomfort. If I didn’t respond to the insults hurled in my direction.

I loved you while second-guessing my own memory.
I loved you while being told my anxiety was the problem.
I loved you while shrinking my personality so the room wouldn’t explode.
I loved you while wondering how you knew things I never told you or reading between lines that felt violated, watched, monitored.
I loved you through gaslighting that made me doubt my own mind.
I loved you while freezing in moments I should have been protecting.

That love was loud. It was frantic. It was desperate to fix something that was breaking me.

You’re right.

I don’t love him like that.

I don’t love him with fear sitting in my chest.
I don’t love him like I’m negotiating for basic respect.
I don’t love him like I have to earn gentleness.

He doesn’t raise his voice when I express hurt.
He doesn’t intimidate the air around me.
He doesn’t punish me for having emotions.
He doesn’t weaponize my self-doubt.
He doesn’t turn my vulnerability into evidence against me.

When I spiral, he steadies.
When I hesitate, he reassures.
When old trauma whispers, he listens instead of mocking it.

The love I feel now is quiet. It’s steady. It doesn’t spike my nervous system… it soothes it. It isn’t passionate because it’s chaotic; it’s deep because it’s safe. It doesn’t require me to abandon myself in order to keep it.

I used to think intensity meant depth.
Now I know peace is deeper.

So yes, if you say I will never love him the way I loved you…

I love him without fear.
I love him without shrinking.
I love him without bargaining for kindness.
I love him in a way that lets me remain whole.

And maybe that’s the saddest truth of all.

Because the way I loved you nearly erased me. The way I loved you wasn’t a love you were ready for, at all.

And the way I love him is finally bringing me back.