Seventeen years of holding it all together has led to this: sitting in a car with a blown radiator hose, realizing the man I love would rather lie about being drunk than help me. From being left at a busy intersection to fixing broken windows with my teenager while he called me "needy," the pattern is unmistakable. Everyone showed up for me—my mother, strangers, acquaintances—except the one person who promised to. The most painful realization isn't that I deserve better; it’s that I don't want someone better—I just wanted him to be better. But love cannot survive on potential alone, and you cannot fill someone who won't lift a hand to help themselves. I finally see that choosing to stay means choosing to disappear. I’m done begging for the bare minimum. I am choosing myself first, because love shouldn't feel like being stranded. "I don’t want someone better; I just wanted him to be better. But I love myself enough now to stop pretending this is what love feels like."