Cole

Like I would go right to my head and deal with or I would try to deal with a lot of things without really like addressing how it was making either one of us feel, me or Leah.

And like I think like the fears and and like the trauma from the abuse, it was enough for me to pretend like everything was all good on that side.

And I didn't want it to show up in the relationship with Leah.

So I would, I would talk it down a lot though.

Like I would say, Oh, my ex partner, like, it's all good.

Like we're friends.

We just have a lot to talk about because we share a daughter.

But in reality, like I was really avoiding talking about like the fear that I had to kind of like take control of my life now.

Well, it continued on for quite a while the past year, like only like I've just gone through a couple months of counseling and it's been like the best thing for me.

And I can now I can fully talk about like the bad parts of the last relationship where like I did feel very trapped.

And even when we separated and divorced, it didn't give me the like the freeing feeling that I thought it would give.

Like I kind of have explained, I've always felt kind of hostage and I don't have a say with me and my ex to do with our daughter.

And everything was very much like we're parents to our daughter.

Like you have to be willing to like answer my calls and phone calls.

I felt like I didn't have a way to honestly take a stand against my ex-partner in the simplest way to put it.

There was just so much fear.

And I was very scared to bring it to this relationship.

And I didn't know how to talk about it.

So in my head, I would just try to handle things and acknowledge things behind the scenes with my ex-partner.

And then when I was with Leah...