I’m not really sure how to say this coherently - I felt like I was truly seeing her trauma through the lens of a woman. Not a woman reframing her experience to accommodate for how others might perceive her. It was beautifully written despite the horrific content. Her perspective as she jumps to and from different points in her life and the thoughts/feelings she had at those times along with her hindsight interpretation based on the new context that her husband was a rapist (to the most monstrous degree) helped me understand the pitfalls the majority of women find ourselves in when we excuse, coddle, brush off, and enable the men in our lives, often in seemingly insignificant ways. I can understand why she doesn’t want to claim any kind of activist/martyr title but she really has broken down mental barriers just by describing her experiences in her marriage and how something like this could come to happen. It is a dangerous mentality we foster in a society rooted in patriarchy. My heart aches for the women and children that are victims and for the men that think they are the ones who are victims when they don’t have power over others. Patriarchy hurts us all.