The Aftermath

After I left, I spent Christmas alone in a hotel.
No tree.
No fairy lights.
No family.
Just silence and survival.

I eventually moved in with my mum. It wasn’t ideal, but it gave me space to breathe while I waited for my own place. A few months later, I got the keys to a small house that was mine. Just mine.

But in the time between leaving and finally settling, he was relentless.

The calls.
The messages.
The fake tenderness.
He wanted to meet for coffee.
Said we needed to talk.
Said he was going to change.
Said he was getting help.

But I’d heard it all before.
We’d lived that cycle a dozen times.
And nothing ever changed.

About six months in, I sat down with him again. This time I wasn’t unsure, or hopeful, or clinging to “what ifs.” I told him straight:
“I want a divorce. I don’t love you. We’re never getting back together. That’s it.”

That’s when the mask dropped.
The love turned to fury.

He called constantly.
Insulted me.
Threatened me.
One day, he walked into my new home uninvited, took my car keys, and stood outside in the street, chucking the contents of my car at my front door, tins of paint, bags, anything he could find.

He screamed insults loud enough for the whole street to hear.
Most of my neighbours didn’t even know my name yet.
Now they knew the drama before they knew me.

Then came the Facebook posts.

He told people I was a benefit fraud.
Said I hadn’t seen my children in months,
That I was sleeping around,
That I was unstable,
Unfit,
Unhinged.

The words didn’t hurt as much as the audacity.
The lies,
Spoken so loudly by someone who used to swear he loved me.

And then...silence.

Complete silence.
But it wasn’t peace.

It was eerie, like waiting for a storm that hadn’t passed, just paused.

And it wasn’t just me who noticed the silence.
My son noticed too.
Felt it.
Lived in it.

He’s seen his father twice since we left.

And both times, his dad looked him straight in the eye,
And said nothing.
Not a hello.
Not a sorry.
Not a single word.

Just a glare.
Cold.
Empty.
Still burning with anger.

That silence didn’t just fill the space between us,
It settled inside us.

And that’s where this chapter ends
With everything unsaid.
And the choice not to chase closure,
But to create peace without it.