Tonight, as we drive back toward Colorado, I can’t shake the storm inside my chest. It feels ugly and heavy, like something in me has curdled. I don’t like feeling this way. I don’t like that hate is what rises up instead of peace. But right now, I can’t deny it — all I feel is pain and hate toward the two men sitting in the front seat.
Not because I’m cruel, or unforgiving, or dramatic.
But because I have been wounded over and over by their entitlement, their lack of accountability, their smugness, and their constant belittling.
I keep replaying the things he says and does:
How they expect to be served.
How they say whatever they want without consequence.
How he threaten lives and shrugs it off.
How they laugh when someone else is crying.
How he calls me a “bitch” or “reactive” and then pretend it’s a joke.
How he preaches accountability while carrying none himself.
How Clay hides behind excuses and other people instead of standing up and telling the truth.
How he speaks to me with a kind of casual cruelty that leaves bruises no one can see.
And then there’s the kind of man he is —
the kind who snaps at you in the car for nothing,
again and again,
sharp little attacks that cut you open before you even realize you’re bleeding.
And when you finally stand there stunned, hurt, confused,
he twists the story like he always does.
Suddenly you were the one snapping.
Suddenly you were the one with the attitude.
Suddenly your tone was the problem.
But when I think back — really think back —
I know exactly how it went.
I know the truth.
I know the first blow never came from me.
I know he rewrites the moments so he never has to face himself.
And I’m so tired of letting someone else’s denial make me doubt my own memory.
It’s a special kind of cruelty,
to hurt someone
and then convince them they imagined it.
And he’s also the kind of man who swears he doesn’t treat him any differently —
yet somehow the contrast is loud enough to make my ears ring.
He never critiques Chris’s driving.
Not once.
Not a single snapped comment.
Not a single passive-aggressive tone.
Not a single impatient jab.
But with me?
Every tiny thing becomes a flaw to point out,
a moment to correct,
a chance to belittle.
And he’ll still swear up and down that he doesn’t treat us differently.
But the proof sits right in front of me:
Chris doesn’t get his life threatened.
Chris doesn’t get called a “bitch.”
Chris doesn’t get blamed for every emotional ripple in the car.
Chris doesn’t get grilled with constant questions until he’s suffocating.
Chris gets respect.
He gets calm.
He gets generosity.
He gets patience.
He gets the better cut of meat at dinner — literally and figuratively.
He gets catered to like he’s royalty.
He gets the version of Clay that I wish existed for me.
And somehow I am expected to believe
that this is equal.
That this is fair.
That this is “just how he is.”
That it isn’t a choice.
But it is a choice.
A clear one.
And I’m finally seeing it for what it is.
And he’s the kind of man you can pour your heart into —
send long messages, thoughtful reflections, honest words —
and he won’t even read them.
Not because he didn’t have time.
Not because he forgot.
But because he simply doesn’t value anything that requires emotional effort.
He’s the kind of man who won’t listen to your music,
no matter how much meaning it holds for you.
You could hand him a piece of your soul in the form of a song
and he’d shrug it off,
change the station,
or talk over it like it’s nothing.
Because to him, it is nothing.
He’s the kind of man who knows you have a blog —
your writing, your heart, your thoughts, your growth —
and he has never once bothered to read a single word of it.
He doesn’t know your favorite piece, your favorite line, or your voice on the page.
He doesn’t even know what your writing sounds like.
He never asked.
He never cared.
And it makes me wonder —
does he give a fuck about anything that isn’t physical,
or convenient,
or something that benefits him directly?
Does he care about my mind?
My heart?
My spirit?
My dreams?
My fears?
My hopes?
My faith?
My stories?
My joy?
My pain?
Does he actually care about Hannah —
the full, real, breathing, feeling Hannah —
or just the parts that make his life easier?
Because right now,
from everything he does,
everything he shows,
everything he chooses,
the answer feels painfully clear:
No.
He doesn’t actually give any shits about the real me.
He cares about comfort.
He cares about convenience.
He cares about control.
He cares about attention when it serves him.
He cares about the physical parts of me that he can touch or use or enjoy.
But the rest —
the heart, the mind, the passion, the effort, the soul —
he has never reached for.
Never protected.
Never treasured.
And I am so tired of starving my own heart
hoping he will suddenly learn how to feed it.
And he’s the kind of man who can only act halfway decent
when his mom is around.
Like her presence forces him into a softer version of himself,
a version he refuses to offer me.
A version he’s fully capable of
but chooses to withhold
unless he’s being watched,
judged,
or kept in line.
It’s like he needs her there to coach him into behaving,
to make sure he doesn’t let the cruelty spill out too obviously.
Without her around, he snaps,
he belittles,
he mocks,
he threatens,
he becomes that small, mean version of himself
that hides behind anger and ego
because he has no real backbone of his own.
And it hits me —
if a grown man can only treat his partner with basic decency
when his mother is in the room,
then he isn’t a man.
He’s a boy pretending to be one.
A boy who relies on fear, not respect.
A boy who can’t control his own mouth or his own temper.
A boy who needs someone else’s presence
just to act like the person he claims to be.
A boy who is incapable of offering kindness
unless he’s being supervised.
And I’m done loving boys
who refuse to grow into men.
And somewhere in all of it, something inside me snapped.
I don’t admire him.
I don’t trust him.
And worst of all — I don’t recognize him as someone capable of love.
Is it wrong to feel this kind of hate?
Part of me fears that it is, that I’m failing spiritually somehow. But then I remember Scripture:
“The Lord hates… a lying tongue, a proud heart, feet quick to rush into evil.” – Proverbs 6:16–19
“Be angry and do not sin.” – Ephesians 4:26
Hate isn’t always sinful.
Sometimes it’s the body’s alarm system, the soul’s instinct to pull away from danger.
What I feel isn’t the kind of hate that grows from bitterness — it’s the kind born from hurt, from betrayal, from watching someone treat me with contempt and daring to call it love.
But even so, I can feel how poisonous it is.
How it burns in my chest and tightens my throat.
How it steals the softness I know God placed in me.
How it tries to settle into my bones and make a home there.
I know that if I hold onto this, it won’t destroy them —
it will destroy me.
I don’t want that.
I don’t want to become hardened because of their lack of character.
I don’t want to lose my kindness because they lack empathy.
I don’t want to lose my tenderness because they don’t know how to hold it.
God says:
“Above all else, guard your heart.” – Proverbs 4:23
Maybe tonight guarding my heart doesn’t look like forgiveness yet.
Maybe it simply looks like acknowledging the truth:
that these men are not safe for me emotionally.
That their words are daggers.
That their jokes are cruelty in disguise.
That their behavior has chipped away at my spirit.
That I deserve better — not because I’m perfect, but because God never created me to be someone’s emotional punching bag.
And then my mind drifts to those reels online —
women whose husbands look at them with gentleness
and say things like, “I’ll take care of you,”
“I’ve got you,”
“You don’t have to worry anymore.”
I watch those moments and feel something ache deep in me.
Not for luxury. Not for dramatic romance.
Just to be treated okay.
Just to be cared for in the simplest human way.
I long for someone who actually follows through,
who doesn’t raise my hope in the morning and crush it again by nightfall.
Someone who can be the same person on the drive home that he was in the tree stand.
Someone whose words don’t evaporate the moment something or someone shinier comes along.
It hurts knowing that within the same 24-hour period,
Clay and I can have a conversation about how high my hopes have been lifted and how easily they get shattered —
and then he goes right back to being the same old person I knew he would be.
No change.
No effort.
No growth.
Just the same cycle: promises, hope, disappointment, excuses.
I’m tired.
I’m worn down.
I’m craving a place where I feel seen and loved and valued — where I don’t have to shrink so someone else can feel big.
And maybe the hate I feel right now is the beginning of clarity.
Not the destination, but the warning sign.
Not who I am, but what I’ve endured.
Maybe it’s the final push I need to walk away from the men who repeatedly show me their character and expect me to pretend I don’t see it.
Later, this hate will fade.
Once I’m away, once my heart is safe again, once I reclaim the parts of myself that have been suppressed, this feeling will dissolve into peace.
But tonight, in this car, in this darkness, I write the truth:
I am hurt.
I am angry.
And I hate what they have become.
And I hope one day he has to stand before God and answer for every tear I cried because of him —
not because I want revenge,
but because God is just,
and my suffering did not go unseen.
And maybe — just maybe — that’s the first step toward freedom.
And what cuts deepest tonight is this:
he cares so little about my tears —
the ones that burned hot on my cheeks,
the ones that came from the deepest places of my heart —
that he can just fall asleep next to them.
Fall asleep with that same disgusting, smug, gross, ugly look on his face.
As if my pain is an inconvenience.
As if my heartbreak is a background noise he’s grown comfortable tuning out.
As if nothing I feel has ever mattered.
There is something devastating about realizing that your tears,
the ones that kept you awake,
did not even place a wrinkle on his conscience.
But maybe that’s its own revelation too —
the confirmation that a man who can sleep soundly beside your suffering
was never a man who deserved access to your heart.
And what makes all of it even more unbearable is how he looks at me with that smug, condescending face and tells me I need to reflect on how I’m imperfect. As if he hasn’t cut me down a hundred times. As if he hasn’t ignored my tears, mocked my feelings, twisted my words, and blamed me for wounds he caused. It’s almost laughable — the man who shows me the ugliest version of himself has the audacity to tell me to self-reflect. He sits there acting superior, pointing out my flaws while refusing to look at even one of his own. It’s gaslighting at its purest form, and somehow I’m the one left holding the guilt he should be drowning in.
Sometimes I sit here and wonder if men like them have any idea how truly detestable they become in the eyes of the women they treat this way. If they know how the smugness, the entitlement, the cruelty, the blaming, the dismissiveness, the double standards rot their image from the inside out. If they know how deeply unattractive it is to watch a grown man refuse accountability, or to see him puff up with pride while acting like a coward. I wonder if they have any clue how ugly their behavior makes them — how far from admirable, respectable, or lovable they really are. Because sitting here, watching them act the way they do, I can feel the respect draining out of me until there’s nothing left but revulsion.
Sometimes the pain hits so hard and so deep that my mind goes to places I’m almost ashamed to admit. I’ll be sitting in a car, or staring out a window, and this thought flashes across my mind — maybe if I got into a car accident, I wouldn’t have to keep living like this. Not because I want to die, but because the life I’m living feels too heavy to carry. It’s like my brain is trying to find any possible way out of the hurt, any escape from the constant disappointment and loneliness and emotional beatdown. It scares me how real the fantasy can feel in those moments — not because I want that outcome, but because the idea of a forced pause, a forced rest, a forced exit from this pain feels like the only relief I can imagine when everything around me feels suffocating.