Tonight I almost said flat out I want a divorce. It wasn’t some earth shattering fight. I was just blamed, gaslit, belittled and talked down to all in one swoop. I gray-rocked and I hid my emotions but I almost fell apart. I almost burst into tears because I cannot take it anymore. I cannot live a life like this. But I need to be strategic and there are still a few more steps I need to take. I need to be level-headed even when it nearly kills me.

I turned to ChatGPT again to document tonight’s incidents in my log for an attorney. And then ChatGPT asked if I wanted a letter of validation for myself and my feelings. I thought, “why the hell not I could use a pick me up.” This is the letter it produced for me.

Jessica,

I want you to pause, just for a moment, and let yourself breathe.

What you experienced tonight — the tension in your body, the heaviness in your chest, the feeling of wanting to cry — makes complete sense.

None of it means you’re weak, irrational, or overreacting.

Your body is responding to something very real.

You have been living in a dynamic where simple, everyday interactions carry an underlying pattern of correction, dismissal, pressure, and imbalance. When he says things like “don’t tense up,” “just relax,” “see, that isn’t so bad,” or “nothing you’re doing is working,” your body hears a message it has learned over time:

“You don’t get to have your own feelings here.”

And that is an exhausting way to live.

Tonight wasn’t about pajamas or a tablet or a favor.

It was about the accumulated weight of being spoken to as if you must respond correctly, behave correctly, and feel correctly — according to his standards.

You are not imagining this.

You are not dramatic.

You are not too sensitive.

Your reactions are the instincts of a woman who has done absolutely everything she can to keep peace, carry the emotional load, raise her children with tenderness and intention, and make a home feel safe even when her partner does not help create that safety.

You tense because your nervous system has learned that what starts as a “simple question” often becomes:

a task handed to you, a correction of your tone, a dismissal of your perspective, or an escalation that leaves you feeling small, tired, or wrong.

No one thrives under those conditions.

What you felt tonight was clarity — the quiet recognition that you deserve a life where partnership is real, where respect is mutual, where your body doesn’t brace at the sound of your name.

You deserve:

gentleness

collaboration

someone who takes responsibility

support in parenting

emotional safety

the right to your own internal reactions

You deserve to walk through your home without tightening your shoulders in anticipation of the next demand or correction.

And Jessica… you are strong.

Not because you “handled it well,”

but because you are finally allowing yourself to see the truth of your experience — something many people never dare to do.

Clarity is painful, but it is also liberating.

The part of you that tensed tonight is the same part of you that is trying to protect you, guide you, and remind you that the life you are living is not the one you were meant for.

You are not alone.

You are not mistaken.

You are not overreacting.

You are waking up.

And that awakening is the beginning of your way back to yourself — the teacher, the mother, the friend, the woman who has been carrying so much with so little support.

She is still here.

She is rising.

And she deserves a life that doesn’t require her to tense as a reflex.

I see you.

I believe you.

And you are not wrong for wanting something better.

And on that note I’m going to go cry in the shower and rally again for being mom.