As you say – what puts it all into perspective, is the gift of our children. They are why we stay alive, and made the enormous, brave step to walk away from someone to whom we were trauma-bonded.

Shawna, do you mind if I ask you a question? And please do not answer if you do not feel comfortable. How did you get a restraining order on your ex husband?

The grief I feel from losing contact with my ex-fiancé’s son overwhelms me to this day. I feel so guilty that I took my love and goodness away from him. I have to stay away because I can’t heal in a place that made me sick. But I helped raise him from 16 months to 6 years old. I stayed in a toxic and abusive relationship with my ex for too long, and a huge reason was that I felt so strongly that I needed to protect my stepson from his father – yes, the man I was planning to marry. I was going to marry a man from whom I felt I needed to protect his child… yikes. I’m grateful I woke up. I saw a lot of narcissistic behaviors from my ex that reminded me of my own father and traumatic childhood, and I didn’t want my ex’s son to go through all of that pain alone. We had such a strong, loving, incredible bond. Memories of shared happy moments with my ex-stepson help keep me going to this day. I’m lucky that his mother and I had a really good co-parenting relationship as well – although, I think it’s fair of me to take some credit there because I am easy to work with! I will always and forever be so proud of the time I put in as his “Bonus Mom,” which is how his mother referred to me 🙂 I would still give my life for him even though it’s been 3 years now.

Typing this out to you helped me feel a lot of bittersweet feelings, but overall I feel a little bit more healed just sharing that – thank you for writing something that ♥️ I feel like I will reunite with my ex-stepson one day, especially as I continue along my healing journey.

Please don’t feel like you “need to reinvent yourself.” You invented a person for HIM- an incredibly flattering character that he didn’t deserve and never was. You don’t need to change anything about yourself because he’s not part of your life anymore. You breathed your greatness into him, and it’s time you reclaim it as your own.