Isn’t it amazing what you start to remember after you leave a negative situation? You get so tied up in the circumstances that you forget there is another way to exist.
You start to accept your own daily misery as being the inescapable standard of living.
And then you break free and learn to start living again. This has been my experience lately as it relates to leaving a horrible relationship. I was a second-class citizen in my own home, and had no control over even the most basic circumstances… like our heating and cooling system. My partner insisted that he knew about indoor air quality control devices better than I ever could. He had worked as a local heating, cooling, and air quality control technician apprentice for one summer in high school. After that, he was convinced that he was the master of all furnaces and air conditioning units. He knew more than anybody else about thermostats, air ducts, and the proper way to maintain your entire HVAC system. This meant that I was not able to touch our heating and cooling equipment… Down to the thermostat. The temperature control device was completely off limits to me. I had to live in the temperature control settings that he was most comfortable with in his tyrannical control. I spent the last two years shivering in abundant AC or dissatisfactory heating. Finally, I left that jerk a few months ago. There have been many points of relief, but the thermostat has given me a whole new lease on life. I can actually manage my own temperature control settings these days. Even better – the HVAC system is actually clean because I pay a real HVAC technician to service it.