Please do this 1 small thing
Before you go any further, I have a small request for you. I do it from the deepest, kindest, most urgent parts of my soul.
If you’ve read my blogs or scrolled through my reels and they’ve resonated with you…
If someone sends you this because they think of you when they read it..
If you can come up with stories and examples of your own heartbreaking moments within your relationship and can easily recall your own scenarios where you’ve been sad, afraid, or hurt in your marriage…
…please, start writing them down.
I think a lot of people assume you should document for legal purposes. And that’s true. Legally, documentation might be able to help in a plethora of situations, such as custody issues, filing for restraining orders, and more. Depending on your situation, you might already know whether that’s critically important or not.
But before you say that you aren’t someone that needs to document anything, I’m going to very kindly and lovingly say YES YOU ARE.
But I’m going to tell you to write things down for a very different reason than I mentioned above. I want you to start writing down the reasons you’re reading this blog in the first place.
What moments in your relationship are you deeply shocked over?
What are the stories and words that float through your mind that bring you such sadness?
What has your partner done to hurt you?
Because here’s the thing. Every single woman I have talked in situations like yours has been conditioned not to believe the memories and feelings she carries. She has been gaslit for years by her partner. She has been told that her feelings aren’t valid or that everything is her fault. And in turn, she has learned to gaslight herself.
You may already understand that the things that you’re going to document in your relationship aren’t good.
But soon, if you don’t document them, you’ll convince yourself those moments didn’t happen. Your brain will start to forget the moments that broke your heart. You’ll question your memory of the events. Your brain is on a mission to protect you, and for good reason!
But when you’re in the midst of leaving a relationship like that, or gaining the courage to leave, you need to remember why you’re leaving.
It’s for your own safety.
Find a method for documenting safely. That’s really important. Everyone’s safety situation is different, so think carefully about where you could document these things safely. I never had to worry about my husband looking through my personal items, so it wasn’t something I worried about. I was able to put my notes into my phone. But not everyone can do that.
Maybe you send emails to a safe location and delete those sent emails from your inbox.
Perhaps it’s a small notebook stashed where they won’t look.
Maybe you keep documents in your office at work.
I took notes in my notes app on my phone under a folder title “Baby”
My friend documented in a journaling app.
You might be thinking… But what if I’m not planning to leave right now?
Sure. Maybe you ultimately don’t decide to leave. If that’s the case, your documentation didn’t hurt anyone, right? In fact, it should have helped you then. If you can write down what you’ve been through on paper, look at it months or years later and feel good for staying, then that’s confirmation that staying was the right choice. You have nothing to lose in safely documenting your experiences. And everything to gain when you need to remember those moments.
But a lot of women are caught in a cycle of abuse. And that means there are stages where things are good in the relationship, sometimes really good. But those good moments shouldn’t erase the terrible moments you’ve experienced.
If you know that you’ve been through cycles like that, then having documentation to reassure yourself that you have reason to be cautious, reason to walk on eggshells because you don’t know when the switch is going to flip…that documentation was well worth your time.
Take a moment right now to determine how you’re going to document. Please, I beg of you, don’t rely on your brain to remember those painful moments. Because even your good memory isn’t more powerful than your ability to gaslight yourself.
And if you’re like me, your memory sucks. To this day, my friends and I are reminded of heartbreaking moments when our friends or family bring them up to us. Moments that we had completely forgotten about.
In the spirit of documenting, here’s a few things I wrote down before I left:
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I was driving home past my office. I pointed out the passenger window (in front of his face) because I wanted to tell him about the trees outside my office window. (Those trees would bloom these beautiful white flowers in the spring, and I felt so lucky that I had one right in front of my almost full length window where my desk faced). He interrupted, put his finger in front of my face while I was driving, and said, “Don’t put your finger in front of my face,” with a disgusted look. I stopped talking and he didn’t ask to hear the rest of what I wanted to say.
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He hasn’t held our newborn in almost 48 hours (For context, our son was 29 days old and my ex wasn’t working at the time)
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Things I don’t like in our marriage
• When he stonewalls me-shutting down or ignoring me, telling me to “shut up”
• When he calls me names: Bitch, idiot, stupid
• When he Criticizes what I do or don’t do, how I do it, what I wear… with inappropriate anger
• When he doubts me/thinks I’m lying
• When he says I don’t pay enough attention to our son, don’t care about baby
• When I’m always the one in charge of day-to-day operations, doctor’s appointments, medication, meals, plans for son
• When I feel like I can’t be me around him
• He provides no emotional support: no hugs, I love you, support for things I’m excited about, questions about pregnancy
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Now that I’ve shared some of my notes, what is the first thing you’re going to write down?