When I got pregnant and he wouldn’t marry me, I stayed too. He knew it was against my beliefs to have a child out of wedlock. He knew I was under pressure from my family to not have the child. But because I loved him, I kept it and didn’t leave.

When I found out he was talking to another woman while I was pregnant, I had to leave. I heard all the details from her mouth, including how he’d courted her, invited her to the house, and told her he didn’t have a girlfriend. I looked him in the eye while he lied to me about it. I watched him get on his knees, tears in his eyes, when he realized I knew the truth. He begged me to stay. And I left.

There comes a certain point when love and respect for self outweighs love for another. I’ve always been a woman who watched over myself. What originally attracted me to my ex was that he watched over me as well. He made me feel better about me because of who he was and how he treated me, reinforcing my self love. It was becoming clear that wasn’t the case anymore. In his eyes, in that relationship, I realized that I’d become an inferior woman. A non-factor, if you will. That was the deal breaker.