The Cruelty of Relief

I don’t want you anymore. I think I hate you. So why, when your name appears on my phone, does my body answer before I do?

My stomach tightens. My shoulders lift. In the few seconds before I pick up, I search my memory for whatever I might have done wrong. A text answered too slowly. A joke you might have found disrespectful. A tone I didn’t know I had. I arrange my voice before I give it to you. Soft enough not to provoke, warm enough not to invite suspicion.

Sometimes, while the phone is ringing, I think, Please, just let me leave.

As if you are holding me here. As if I am not the one reaching for the phone.

I used to have a motto: I refuse to cut myself into bite-sized pieces. Let them choke.

I loved the woman who said that. I had worked hard to become her. She was outspoken, strange, funny. She wore what she wanted, said what she meant, and was occasionally difficult without feeling the need to apologize for it.

You loved her too, at first.

You loved my independence until it inconvenienced you. My humor until a joke offended you. My mind until it disagreed with yours. Eventually, I started choosing my clothes and doing my hair according to what I thought you would approve of. I knew what I liked. I simply stopped choosing it.

I wish I could say I did not notice myself disappearing. But I knew when I swallowed an opinion or apologized for something I had not done. I knew I was making myself smaller.

And I did it anyway.

I learned you in increments. Which subjects tightened your jaw. Which words made your voice rise. I knew what kind of day it would be by the way you closed the cabinets. Sometimes I could hear your mood before you said a word. I learned how long your silences might last and what might end them. I learned that an apology did not have to be true to be useful. I could say I was sorry and watch the room become breathable again.

You never really apologized. You explained. You accused. You told me what I had done to make you act like that, why I had left you no choice. By the time an argument ended, I was usually comforting you or promising to behave differently.

Nothing was resolved. I was revised.

Eventually, I became almost decorative. I sat beside you, physically present and privately elsewhere. I would think of something funny, imagine how you might misunderstand it, and let it die behind my teeth. Sometimes I watched you watching television and thought, I would rather be anywhere else. I would rather be with anyone else. This man does not love me.

Then you would ask if I wanted something from the kitchen, and I would feel grateful.

That is the part I can barely admit.

I never mistook your cruelty for love. I knew what was happening. I knew I was unhappy. I knew it was abuse.

I stayed for the moment you stopped.

When your voice softened after yelling, when you finally looked at me after hours of silence, when your hand rested gently on my back, relief came so suddenly I almost wanted to cry. My shoulders dropped. I could speak without weighing every word. Sometimes you made me laugh, and for a few minutes I forgot how badly I had wanted to be somewhere else.

I was grateful to you for ending the pain you had caused.

Soon I began looking forward to those moments more than I looked forward to seeing you. In the middle of an argument, I would already be imagining the quiet afterward. I knew the tenderness would not last. Still, I wanted it: the softened voice, the familiar touch, the chance to breathe.

I did not crave you. I craved the return of oxygen.

And sometimes, God help me, I felt proud.

I could sense your anger gathering and sometimes stop it with the right tone, a well-timed touch, an apology offered before you demanded one. When it worked, I felt accomplished. I had figured you out. I had kept the peace.

I hate how much that meant to me.

I had been practicing long before I met you. I already knew how to read a room, how to make myself agreeable, how to feel someone’s mood change before a word was spoken (Thanks, Mom). With you, those old instincts felt almost like competence. I mistook being good at navigating the relationship for having some control over it.

Then you cry in my arms.

I wish I could forget that. It would be easier to leave if I could think of you as cruel and nothing else. But I remember stroking your hair, softening my voice, telling you that you were going to be all right. I know what frightens you. Even now, the thought of you hurting still hurts me.

I knew how to comfort you in ways you never bothered to comfort me.

You need me more than you like me.

Maybe you believe you love me. I do not know what love feels like inside someone else’s body. I know only what it has felt like to be on the receiving end of yours.

And still, when I imagine leaving, I imagine you afterward.

I wonder who will hold you when you cry. I know how absurd it is to worry about the loneliness of someone who has made me feel so alone. But even in my fantasies of freedom, I am preoccupied with your pain.

Sometimes I want to beg you not to cry. Not to need me. Not to become tender just when I have gathered enough anger to walk away. I cannot keep being the person who makes you feel safe while becoming someone who does not feel safe herself.

Please. Just let me leave.

But you are not physically holding me here. I know that. I can stop answering. I can refuse the invitation, end the conversation, wear whatever I want. I can imagine going an entire day without wondering what I have done wrong.

Then I imagine you needing me, and the door becomes heavier.

I keep making promises to myself. One more conversation. One more evening. One more moment when you are gentle with me, and then I will leave. I mean it each time. I tell myself I need one last good memory, something soft to carry away, something that will make leaving hurt less.

Then the tenderness comes, and I want another.

Just a little longer. Just enough kindness to carry me through the next difficult day.

I resent being the person you can hurt and then turn to for comfort. I resent knowing how to soothe you. Most of all, I resent that I still want your kindness when I no longer want you.

The woman I used to be is still here. I hear her when I catch myself preparing an apology and feel that familiar disgust rise in my throat. She knows I can leave. She knows I should.

I do not know why knowing has not been enough.

I do not want another good day with you. I do not want another brief stretch of peace that makes everything bearable again. I want to relax because you are no longer there, not because you have decided to be gentle.

But when you become kind again, I feel it. That terrible, beautiful relief. For a little while, I can breathe. For a little while, I almost convince myself that this is enough.

So why do I keep hitting myself with the hammer?

Because it feels so damn good when I stop.