His Escape Was My Prison

But not anymore.

It was my husband who actually gave me the words.

“His escape was my prison.”

Only took seven years of recovery work to get to the point where he truly understood what that meant.

And even longer for me to believe he actually got it.

For a long time, his betrayals—his secret world, his lies, his acting out—felt like chains around my ankles.

He would numb, avoid, disappear into dopamine-soaked distractions.

And I would sit in the silence… picking up the shattered pieces of trust,

feeling the sting of every memory now tainted.

Things that were supposed to bring joy—date night at our favorite restaurant, a trip to the beach, the smell of his cologne—became triggers. Landmines.

He escaped reality.

I was imprisoned in it.

And that’s what betrayal trauma does.

It locks you in the wreckage of their choices.

While they flee to fantasy, to control, to addiction…

you’re left interrogating reality.

What was real?

What was fake?

What did he think about her when we were sitting there laughing, clinking glasses over pad thai?

When he was off the grid for “work,” I wasn’t sleeping.

I wasn’t eating.

I was scrolling, checking, rereading.

Begging God for something solid to stand on.

His escape bought him relief.

Mine cost me my sanity.

But here’s the truth I want to offer the woman still in that cell:

You don’t have to stay there.

It may have been your prison…

but it doesn’t have to be your permanent address.

I know what it’s like to feel like healing is impossible while he’s still avoiding, denying, or even recovering.

I know the strange disorientation of trying to trust someone who built a house of lies on top of your love.

And I know what it’s like to wonder if you’ll ever laugh freely again without wondering what he was doing the last time you felt this good.

But I’ve also lived into this:

You can grieve the losses without losing yourself.

You can feel your feelings without becoming them.

And you can—slowly, with sacred defiance—walk out of that prison barefoot and whole.

You get to reclaim your joy.

Your presence.

Your power.

One trigger, one boundary, one hard-earned breath at a time.

And eventually—when the dust clears, when the ground steadies—you might just name your freedom.

You might just write a post like this one.

And you might even say:

“His escape was my prison.”

But not anymore.