Not Everything That’s Respectful Is Safe
June 06, 2025
Sometimes, people who’ve hurt you learn how to treat you respectfully — but that doesn’t mean you can let them back in. Respect is not the same as safety.
Today I realised something I’ve never been able to see clearly before:
Just because someone is being respectful, doesn’t mean they’re safe.
And not everything that’s respectful deserves deeper access to my life.
My ex messaged me respectfully — and in that moment, I appreciated it.
Not because it made everything okay, and definitely not because it erased the past.
But because, for once, I felt a boundary being honoured.
That shouldn’t be rare. But for me, it is.
And it put into sharp focus just how incapable my mother has been —
how little respect she has ever shown me,
and how much that absence has shaped the way I’ve learned to tolerate pain.
This doesn’t mean I want anything more with my ex.
We don’t work together.
We both carry wounds that trigger each other in ways that are too complex, too corrosive, too costly — especially for our son.
Even now, after all the work I’ve done, too much time with her could unravel it.
Not because I haven’t healed,
but because I’ve worked too hard to climb out of that dynamic to ever willingly step back in.
And so I’m learning this:
Respect is a minimum.
Safety is something deeper.
Respect might look like a kind message.
But safety is about how I feel after — whether I still feel grounded, calm, whole.
Whether I’m still me.
Today, I held the line.
I acknowledged the respect without reopening the door.
And I recognised that I don’t need to turn small moments of decency into invitations for reconnection.
I’ve learned to see things clearly now.
And I’m not trading that clarity for anything — not even a flicker of familiarity.
Not everything that’s respectful is safe.
And I choose safety now.
For me.
For my son.
For the man I’ve become.