Читать книгу It’s Just a Date: A Guide to a Sane Dating Life - Greg Behrendt - Страница 21

I met you guys at a singles mixer for “It’s Called A Breakup Because It’s Broken” in Seattle. During a Q&A session I told you about my last relationship with a verbally abusive man and the subsequent breakup of it and you were both very supportive of my decision to leave (a decision I was regretting at the time). When you spoke to me one of you said that I didn’t think I deserved anything better than being in an abusive relationship and I told you that you were wrong. You continued to challenge me on that idea and it really hurt my feelings because I like to think of myself as a pretty together person who likes herself. But when I got home that night I looked at the pictures in frames around my house, seeing images of myself as a little girl with my parents and at various stages of my life and I burst into tears. I cried for a long time and it was a therapeutic crying jag but during it, or maybe what caused it, was the realization that you were right. If I really felt like I deserved better I wouldn’t have stood for the abuse as long as I did and it wouldn’t have been hard to leave. So it’s a few years later now and I’ve been doing a lot of work on myself and seeing a therapist to try to figure out why I constantly compromise myself for others that wouldn’t do the same for me. I feel like a different person, a clearer person and a more confident and valuable person. Today I’m happy to write to you to tell you that I’ve met a wonderful man who loves and reveres me as much as I do myself and we’re getting married this fall. (Please see the enclosed invitation.) I hope you can attend because you really did change my life, but no need to bring a gift as you’ve already given me one.

Mavis

Kirkland, WA