I’ve had to admit something hard recently:
I made a poor choice when I got into a relationship with my son’s mother.

Not because I didn’t love her — I probably did, in the ways I was capable at the time.
Not because I was trying to sabotage my life.
But because I didn’t know how to choose safety.
Because safety wasn’t familiar to me.

When you grow up around control, manipulation, emotional unpredictability — that becomes your compass. You don’t even know you’re looking for partners who mirror what you know. You just follow what feels familiar. And familiar doesn’t always mean good. Sometimes it just means survivable.

Looking back now, I can see the patterns so clearly.

Her cheating wasn’t a one-off mistake.
It was a reflection of a broader value mismatch — a tendency to avoid responsibility, act impulsively, and deny uncomfortable truths when they surface.

Her failure to hold my boundaries with my mother? Same pattern.
It’s not just about not understanding. It’s about not being willing to stand in the discomfort of someone else’s pain and still say,

“That’s not okay.”

And I know that discomfort well. I’ve spent my whole life living in it.
Explaining myself to people who were never listening.
Trying to justify boundaries that never should have needed defending.
Taking the blame just to keep the peace.

But that time is over now.

The truth is, she was never a safe place — even when I desperately wanted her to be.

And that’s not an insult. It’s just clarity.
Because when someone repeatedly shows you who they are — even in subtle ways — and you keep hoping they’ll be different, you’re not in a relationship. You’re in a performance. A delay. A quiet betrayal of yourself.

So yes. I chose wrong.
But that doesn’t make me broken.
It makes me human.
It makes me someone who learned the hard way — and is choosing differently now.

No more rescuing.
No more explaining.
No more shrinking to make others feel more comfortable.

I’m done choosing familiar pain.
Now I choose peace.
Even if that means choosing myself alone.

Because that’s not loneliness.
That’s clarity.
That’s healing.
That’s home.