Today I was thinking about the dayI I told Ted I didn't love him anymore. I remember him saying something like, I guess you don't believe in unconditional love after all. Truth is I love that man unconditionally for 21 years. The day I told him I didn't love him anymore, he was the same asshole doing the same shit he had done the entire time we were dating. Nothing he said or did could have made me stop loving him. He lied to me, he said horrible hateful things to me, he frightened me with a threat of physical violence, he spent all our money, he stomped on all my dreams, and yet I kept loving him. The reason I stopped loving him was for my own preservation. It was my choice. I realized that loving him was killing me, and I had to stop. People sometimes ask me if there was an exact moment when I knew it was over. Honestly, it was a lot of little moments that built up over time. But there are three that I remember vividly. One was the shaken baby incident. One was the day he picked a fight with me while we were sitting on the porch swing talking about our future, and right out of the blue he said so many hateful hurtful things. That day I realized I could never trust him again. It wasn't just about trusting him not to cheat on me, it was about trusting him not to hurt me. I knew I could never trust him not to do that again. Over time I came to realize that I could never trust him with my emotions, or my dreams, or my money, or my future. I realize that he had lied to me over and over again through the years, and although I forgave him every time, I didn't want to keep living like that. The other moment was when I was explaining to him for the 100th or the thousandth or the millionth time why something he had done hurt me and why he shouldn't do that anymore. I suddenly realized, I have explained this so many times. If he wanted to understand it he would have understood it by now. He apparently just didn't want to understand. Those three moments together summarize all the things that led up to the end. The other day I had a random thought in the elevator at work. For some reason I thought about the last time I saw him. I was crying over the loss of the marriage. I kept saying, I tried so hard. I tried so hard. He put his arms around me and his voice was so sad. He said, oh, e r i n, both people have to try. I was wondering why he sounded so sad. Was it actual regret for what we could have had? Was it a moment of empathy? Or was it just more acting? It turns out he was a really good actor so maybe that's what it was. Anyway, he told me he wanted our marriage to come back together. I told him that was fine but he had to work at least as hard as I had all these years. He told me he absolutely wanted to do that. Then I never heard from him again.