Love Should Feel Like Coming Home

My first husband was abusive. He passed away a few years ago. People sometimes ask what it feels like when someone who caused you so much pain is no longer here. The truth is, I do not carry anger the way I once did. Time has softened many things. But healing has also taught me something equally important: compassion does not require dishonesty. I can acknowledge his humanity without denying my own experience.

For a long time, I did not realize that leaving the abuse was only the beginning. Escaping is one thing. Teaching your heart that it is finally safe is another. Survival had become a teacher. And it left me with lessons that healthy love would spend years patiently trying to unteach. Survival taught me that love meant pain. Not only physical pain, but emotional pain too.

I believed love was something you earned. Something you proved yourself worthy of. I learned to hide pieces of myself. To quiet my opinions. To become whatever I thought someone else needed me to be because somewhere deep inside me lived the fear that if they truly knew me, they would discover I was not enough. Not pretty enough. Not smart enough. Not fun enough. Not worthy enough.

Even after I left, those beliefs stayed with me. When relationships ended or someone chose someone else, I did not simply experience disappointment. I experienced confirmation. "See?" the old voice whispered. "You were never enough."

Survival taught me that my needs did not matter. That everyone else's came first. That love meant giving until there was nothing left of yourself. Even in relationships that were healthier than the one before, I still measured my worth by how useful I could be. I believed that if I worked harder, loved better, gave more, and asked for less, then maybe this time I would finally deserve to stay.

Survival taught me that my voice was dangerous. That speaking honestly meant defending myself. That silence was safer than disagreement. For years, I carried that lesson into rooms where it no longer belonged. Survival taught me that home was not a place of rest. Home was where I walked on eggshells. Home was where everything had to be perfect.

For a long time, I thought I was simply organized. Therapy helped me understand something deeper. I wasn't organizing my home. I was trying to organize a nervous system that had spent years preparing for chaos. If everything around me stayed in order, perhaps nothing bad would happen. Perhaps I could finally control something.

Survival taught me that safety depended on everyone else. If people were happy, I was safe. If they were angry, I wasn't.

Even after I escaped, those lessons followed me. I apologized constantly. I explained myself too much. I overworked. I became fiercely independent. I avoided asking for help. I listened for changes in people's voices before I listened to their words.

And even today, raised voices still make something inside me grow quiet. My mind understands that frustration is not always danger. My nervous system is still catching up.

Then came love. Real love. Not perfect love. Healthy love. And I quickly discovered something unexpected. Healthy love felt unfamiliar.

One day, I accidentally dropped something that meant a great deal to Alvin. A guitar clock he loved crashed to the floor, and before it even landed, my body had already decided what would happen next. I waited for anger. I waited to be blamed. I waited to become the problem.

Instead, he looked at me and said, "It was an accident." That was all. He wasn't pretending. He wasn't swallowing his anger until later. He truly understood that accidents happen.

I remember standing there almost confused. Because my heart had been preparing for a storm that never came.

There were other moments too. The first time I told him why yelling made me feel unsafe. He listened. Really listened. He didn't dismiss it. He didn't tell me I was too sensitive. He didn't make me feel foolish. He understood that while he wasn't angry with me, my heart did not yet know the difference between raised voices and danger.

So he worked on it. Not because I demanded perfection. But because love chooses understanding whenever it can.

After my miscarriage, he cared for me in ways I did not know I needed. He reminded me that we would get through it together. He reminded me that I did not have to be strong every minute of every day.

Piece by piece, moment by moment, healthy love began teaching my heart a new language. It taught me that disagreement does not have to become destruction. That mistakes do not make me unlovable. That my voice deserves to be heard. That my needs matter too. That kindness does not always come with conditions.

The hardest lesson to unlearn has been the oldest one. That I am enough. If I am honest, I am still learning that lesson. Some days that old voice still tries to convince me that this beautiful life I have now belongs to someone more deserving.

But then I look around. At the quiet mornings. The laughter in my home. The peace I once thought only existed in stories. The husband who became my partner. The friends who stayed. The life I have built. And I remember that healing is not the absence of old lies. It is choosing not to believe them anymore.

Today, love feels like home. And home feels like love. Both are places where I can rest. Where I can cry without apologizing. Where I can make mistakes without becoming the enemy. Where I can disagree without fearing abandonment. Where I am loved for who I am—not for how perfectly I perform.

If someone reading this is still living in a place where love feels like fear, I hope you carry one truth with you.

Love does not come with conditions that require you to disappear.

Love should never ask you to become smaller.

Love should not be something you survive.

Love should feel warm.

It should feel peaceful.

It should feel safe.

It should feel like coming home.

And one day, I hope you discover what I finally did.

You deserve to be loved the same way you are learning to love yourself.

— Jennifer Rene Wallace