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A few days ago, I wrote here about forgiveness and closure. Not long after, this meme popped into my feed, and it hit me square in the chest:

“I don’t forgive you and maybe I’m not supposed to say that.

Maybe I’m supposed to tie it up with Grace and healing and then I wish you well, but I don’t.

I don’t wish you well, not because I’m bitter because you knew exactly what you were doing you knew it would break me and you did it anyway.

They say forgiveness is for me not for you but what if I found peace for not giving you the gift of my grace.

What if I moved on without letting you off the hook because some people don’t deserve closure or softness for a second chance at being seen as gentle when they were anything but?

You wrecked me and you walked away like it was normal like love is supposed to leave bruises.

Like I’m the one who should be doing the work to heal your damage but I’m done carrying the wound and the guilt for not forgiving it so no I don’t forgive you I outgrew you.

I outlived the version of me that waited for an apology you were never man enough to give me.

I don’t need to hold hope anymore hope that you’ll come back, hope that one day you’ll change. Hope that I meant more to you than just convenience.

I found peace and knowing you were a lesson a hard one, one I didn’t deserve but I survived anyway and that’s enough.”

This quote is harsh because the situation it describes was harsh. I would be lying if I said it doesn’t sum up my own feelings.

He got his closure—the ultimate closure, I guess—by ending his life. He got to move on without being here anymore. I wasn’t as “lucky.” But between the pain and the wreckage, I’ve come to see that I am luckier than he was: I’m alive, I still have time left, and I can still enjoy what remains. My life, unapologetically, is better without him in it—except as a fading image in the rearview mirror.

It took me years to find the courage to move on, to redefine myself, to even think of a life outside that cycle of abuse. And then he made the final choice, one I would never have wished for, but it “solved” the part where I had to leave on my own. If there was one good thing he did in over 20 years, it was sparing me from ever having to go back.

I don’t say this lightly, and I don’t say it cruelly. I was wrecked for a long time, and the aftermath nearly destroyed me. But after two years of therapy, I can say this: I am allowed to feel relief that it’s over. I am allowed to feel happy my life isn’t chained to that misery anymore. And I am allowed to reject society’s tidy version of forgiveness.

The truth is, I don’t owe him that grace. I owe it to myself.

I need to forgive myself for being angry, for being bitter, for staying as long as I did. I need to forgive myself for the reckless way I stumbled through grief and substance use after his death. I need to stop apologizing for how I feel. My feelings are mine. They don’t need to be regulated for someone else’s comfort.

And if that makes people uncomfortable, so be it. I’ve lost friends over it. But I’ve also survived, and that survival is enough.

Yes, I empathize when others lose their partners—I feel that grief deeply—but my energy is too fractured to offer much more than love from a distance. That’s part of my healing too: knowing my limits.

At the end of the day, I am grateful. For my mom. For my dog. For my life, imperfect and messy and stitched together by scars. Even for the strokes that ended my career. Because compared to where I was before, this life—this hard, complicated, beautiful life—is still better.

Forgiveness? I’ll keep it for myself.