I Had Lunch with My Abuser

Yea. I know…

What a way to start a blog post, right? This has sat in my drafts for a minute now but I feel that this needed to be shared. To clear the air about what REAL healing looks like.

So let me back track a bit. I haven’t seen or spoken to my ex in over a year. I’ve been thriving in my healing journey but every once in a while I would wonder how he was doing.

Remember, healing isn’t linear chile. And I’m nowhere near perfect. So although he was the cause to our crash and burn, my love for him still hadn’t died.

This is a moment of transparency for me so ride with me for a sec.

I would wonder if he was in good health. If he was still going to therapy. If his business was still succeeding. If his heart had mended yet.

I would give myself permission to feel what I felt. To sit in the feeling for as long as I needed but I wouldn’t allow myself to act on those feelings because your feelings can trick you into believing something is true based on the moment you’re in. So I would eventually let the feeling die out and go on about my day.

That is until he reached out to me to tell me he would be in town and wanted to know if we could have lunch.

So I sat with it. I prayed about it. I checked my own heart before I ever responded. I wasn’t looking for closure because God had already given me that. I wasn’t looking for another apology either because he had apologized more times than I can count. Now whether those apologies changed anything is another conversation, but I had already heard the words.

And before I go any further, I know some of y’all are probably wondering why I would even agree to meet with an ex who caused me so much pain if I claim I’m healed.

Honestly…

I don’t know.

I wish I had some profound, polished answer that tied this up with a pretty little bow. I wish I could tell you there was this deep spiritual revelation that led me to say yes. But there wasn’t.

The best answer I have is….

I was curious.

And maybe that doesn’t sound like enough of a reason. Maybe it isn’t a reason that everyone will understand. But it’s the truth. I wanted to see how he was doing. I wanted to see how I was doing. I wanted to see what it would feel like to sit across from someone who once held so much weight in my life.

Healing doesn’t make you a robot. It doesn’t erase every emotion you’ve ever had or every person you’ve ever loved. It doesn’t mean you stop caring overnight. It simply means your emotions no longer get to drive the car. You acknowledge them, you examine them, and then you make your decisions with wisdom instead of impulse.

So after praying about it and checking my own heart, I agreed to lunch.

When the day came, I got dressed like I would for any other lunch date. I said a quick prayer before I walked inside and asked God for wisdom, discernment, and peace. I wasn’t afraid of him, but I wanted to protect the version of me that I had fought so hard to become.

When I saw him, something surprised me.

I didn’t feel butterflies.

I didn’t feel anger.

I didn’t feel the overwhelming sadness that I expected to creep back in.

I just… felt at peace.

So we talked a bit about nothing really. And I realized something that I don’t think enough people tell you about healing. Healing doesn’t always mean you stop loving someone. Sometimes it simply means they no longer have access to the version of you they once knew. You can genuinely want someone to be healthy, to find peace, to become a better person, and still know with every fiber of your being that they are not meant to continue the journey with you.

That lunch wasn’t about rekindling anything.

It wasn’t about getting answers.

It wasn’t about proving anything to him.

It was about realizing just how much God had transformed me.

A year earlier, I would’ve walked into that restaurant hoping to be chosen. Hoping that something would click and we would go right back to the way things were before all the crap hit the fan. But this time, I walked in already knowing I had chosen myself.

And there is a huge difference between those two women.

That’s why I wanted to share this story. Because social media makes healing look so black and white. People make it seem like once you’ve healed, you’ll never think about them again. You’ll never miss them. You’ll never wonder how they’re doing.

That hasn’t been my experience. Healing didn’t erase my compassion. It just taught me where to place my loyalty.

I can pray for someone from a distance. I can wish them well without wishing they were still part of my life. I can remember the good moments without forgetting why I had to leave. That’s what real healing has looked like for me. Not pretending the relationship never mattered. Not pretending I never loved him.

But loving myself enough to know that some chapters are meant to be remembered… not reread.

We got our food and ate in silence. Taking sneak glances of each other every few bites. I started to wonder if coming was a mistake. Like, “girl you could be on a REAL date right now. Why are you even wasting your time?” But I realized that sometimes you need to get certain things out of your system in order to really grow beyond your potential.

I’ve compared every guy that I’ve dated to him and the feeling I had for him and of course, they’ve all fallen short.

So maybe it was closure I needed because sitting in front of him while he paid the tab, the only feeling I truly had was….

Nothing.

I truly felt nothing towards him or us. And that had been the most freeing feeling I’d experience in over two years!

He didn’t say much, just asked me how my life was and how Z was. He didn’t talk about the past. Nor did he make mention of reconciliation either. I feel he was resigned to his own closure as well.

He walked me to my car and he smiled at me and said, “hey, don’t be a stranger.” But I knew that he very well had planned to. We gave each other one of those church hugs and he opened my door as I climbed in the car.

On the ride home I smiled to myself.

Not because I was particularly happy. And surely not because I was wondering what could’ve been. I smiled because I realized that somewhere along the way, I had finally become the woman I had been praying for. The woman who no longer needed to be chosen because she had already chosen herself.

And while some would say it was still a dumb move to meet up with a man who brought such turmoil my way, I feel glad that I was able to face him and not fall.

If there’s one thing I hope you take away from this, it’s that healing doesn’t always look the way people think it should. I’m not perfect by no stretch of the imagination! THIS IS NOT a permission slip for you to start reaching out and reaching back!

Sometimes you can still care about someone and know they no longer belong in your life. But sometimes you do need to face what once broke you just to realize it no longer has the power to. Healing isn’t about never looking back. Sometimes it can be looking back and realizing you no longer want to go back.