I Go to Bed Worrying Every Night

The price I paid for leaving a man

Colleen Sheehy Orme
3 min readAug 29, 2022
Photo by Karolina Grabowska: On Pexels

I left him nine years. ago. He shouldn’t occupy my mind let alone my bed but he does. He haunts me. He disrupts my daily thoughts and he interrupts my dreams.

The world thinks I’m a divorced woman but I know better.

One of my children calls me.

We speak often but not our complete truth.

He haunts them too.

I just want to sleep.

I want to lay my head on a pillow and I want dreams to follow me. I remember this respite. The normal day. Where a bedroom was a sanctuary. Not a place I ran from.

He warned me. My husband. He told me not to leave him.

He told me he would destroy me.

I mistakenly thought they were the words of an angry man.

Because broken love had made me an angry woman. I could comprehend this. I struggled to let go too. Love is a complex conundrum. I was no different than the average man or woman.

I refused to give up on what sustains us.

I would not abandon what makes life worth living.

But I want to sleep. Whether I leave him or ignore him. Whether I am strong or weak. Whether it’s a good day…

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Colleen Sheehy Orme
Colleen Sheehy Orme

Written by Colleen Sheehy Orme

National Relationship Columnist, Journalist & Former Business Columnist. I cover love, life, & relationships— #WomanResurrected colleen.sheehy.orme@gmail.com

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