Grieving What Could Have Been

Today, I cried in the middle of a family visit.

Nothing dramatic happened. No one noticed, really. I just slipped away for a moment, sat quietly, and let the tears come.

It wasn’t about anything specific—no new wound, no fresh betrayal. Just a sudden wave of grief for something that never really existed: the relationship I thought I had. The life I believed we were building. The man I wanted so badly to love me the way I loved him.

Grieving after emotional abuse is complicated. You’re not just mourning a person, you’re mourning a version of them that you once held onto with your whole heart. You’re grieving the hopes you carried. The future you imagined. The version of yourself who kept trying—who twisted and softened and shrank in order to keep the peace.

You’re grieving conversations that never happened. Apologies you never received. Affection that was withheld like a weapon.

People talk a lot about grief after death. But no one tells you how hard it is to grieve someone who’s still alive. Someone others still see as charming. Kind. Harmless. No one tells you how lonely it is to grieve in silence while life carries on around you.

So if you’re here, feeling like the tears come out of nowhere—between dishes, in the car, at a family dinner—you’re not crazy. You’re not overreacting. You’re not weak.

You’re grieving.
And grief doesn’t follow rules.
It doesn't care if the house is full of your favourite people or if you're smiling one moment and aching the next.
It comes when it comes.

I’m learning to let it.

I’m learning to make space for the heartbreak of what could have been. To hold compassion for the version of me that didn’t know yet. The woman who stayed too long, hoping he’d see her. Hear her. Love her in the way she kept offering love to him.

So today, if all you’ve managed to do is feel, you’ve done enough.

Let the tears come. Let the memories rise. Let the grief pass through.

You’re not broken—you’re becoming.

And that, too, is something to honor. Carlin