"Pushed to the Edge"

Ethan sat in the corner of his room, the letter in his trembling hands. The words burned into his mind: *“You’ve been brought up too strict, Ethan. That’s your problem. You don’t know how to live.”* He heard his father-in-law’s condescending voice echo in his head as if the man was standing right there.

It wasn’t just his words. It was the way he said them, dripping with contempt as if Ethan’s entire existence was a mistake. He had lost count of the number of times he’d heard variations of that same critique. If it wasn’t about how "boring" he was, it was about how "sensitive" he acted, how he didn’t understand how the world really worked.

And Dana—his wife—she never defended him. She didn’t even care. To her, it was all a game. A cruel game of manipulation, power, and control. She could do no wrong in her father’s eyes, nor in the eyes of the people around them. They thought she was perfect, sweet, a model wife and daughter. But they didn’t know the Dana that Ethan lived with.

Behind closed doors, Dana was a nightmare. She didn’t need to yell to destroy him. All it took were a few well-placed words, whispered at just the right moments. She would accuse him of being too controlling, too serious, too rigid. "No wonder you’re miserable," she’d say. "You don’t know how to live."

But Ethan *did* know how to live. Or at least, he used to. He used to believe in love, in honesty, in building something real. But that had been before—before the gaslighting, before the endless blame shifting, before the lies that made him question his very sanity. Now, he was just a shell of the man he once was, clinging to whatever scraps of himself he had left.

His mind drifted back to that afternoon at Dana’s parents’ house. He had stood there, feeling small, as her father casually belittled him over dinner. "Ethan doesn’t like to party," Dana had joked, her voice light and airy. "He’s too serious." Her father had laughed. "Yeah, I can tell," he’d said, shaking his head. "You were raised wrong, son. Too uptight."

The words stung. And yet, what could Ethan say? If he defended himself, they’d twist his response into another sign of his "problem." If he stayed silent, they’d mock him further.

*What about Dana?* he wanted to scream. *Why don’t you ask how she was raised? Why don’t you ask why she lies, why she cheats, why she manipulates everyone around her?* But he knew it wouldn’t matter. They wouldn’t believe him. They never did.

Ethan was trapped. No one saw the truth. No one saw what was happening to him behind the mask Dana wore so perfectly. He was suffocating, drowning in a sea of lies, and every time he tried to reach for help, they pushed him back under.

Now, sitting alone in his room, Ethan wondered if there was any way out. He felt the walls closing in on him, the weight of the expectations, the constant abuse pressing down on his chest. His heart pounded in his ears as the darkness crept closer. There was no escape. Not for him. Not for someone like him, whose only crime was loving someone who didn’t deserve it.

But then, something shifted. A thought, small but persistent, broke through the fog in his mind. *Don’t let them win.* For God was with Ethan.

Ethan stood up, shakily at first, then stronger. He wouldn’t let them break him. Not anymore. They had pushed him to the edge, but he wasn’t going to fall. Not tonight. Not ever.

He threw the letter into the trash, grabbed his keys, and walked out the door, leaving behind the suffocating walls of his prison. As he stepped outside, the night air filled his lungs with a new sense of purpose. He didn’t know where he was going, but for the first time in a long time, it didn’t matter.

He was free. But The Battle ain't OVER!!!

God Bless Us All...

Thank You God For Helping Me...

Jacob M