Having grown up knowing abusers exist, has changed the way I see everyone. It makes sense for me to think everyone’s bad because that’s been the experience. Alan, was nice. I know that is a component of the grooming process, but one of the reasons it’s so affective is because of the positive attention someone gets. It gets easier to want to be around these people especially if you come from a broken home. Abusers smell that from a mile away. Needless to say, my feelings towards Alan are complicated. There’s part of me that’s scared of him still, but there’s also a part of me that remembers him fondly.

I’m amazed I found a husband who is nothing like Freddy or any of these other guys. But I still will never trust him 100%. I don’t trust him with my nieces and it bothers me. Sometimes I see things that aren’t there, but are they? I overthink everything. I can’t tell the difference between him being nice to my niece because its her birthday or because there’s a more sinister motive. I hate that I think this way, I start to hate him over something my minds made up. And then those stories build in my head over time until the lines blur between that and reality.

My husband does whatever I want. And that is weird to me because I’ve never seen anyone do that. So I question that too. He’s a good mind reader. I don’t have to say anything for him to know what I need and that scares me because that means I’m not doing a good job at hiding things. Did the universe finally decide I’d had enough suffering so it sent me a good person? Or is this just one more person who will ruin my life?