· ✦ · Dear Sister · ✦ ·
✦
Dear Sister, Why I Stayed Even When I Saw the Red Flags 🚩
(Part 1 — The Red Flags I Saw)
The truth is…
I saw the red flags.
Not all at once.
Not loudly.
But they were there.
I just didn’t call them what they were.
Sometimes we don’t ignore red flags because we’re blind.
We ignore them because naming them would mean accepting a painful truth.
✦
🚩 He Slowly Isolated Me
It didn’t begin with control.
It began with comments.
“I don’t like him.”
“Why are you talking to him?”
“He wants you.”
“You’re disrespecting me.”
At first, it felt like jealousy.
And I thought jealousy meant love.
One day we were at a shopping centre.
A guy I had known for years walked past, smiled, and said hello.
I smiled back politely.
That’s all.
But my ex became furious.
He questioned my loyalty.
He made me feel guilty for something completely normal.
He turned a simple hello into betrayal.
And I remember thinking:
Maybe I shouldn’t smile at men anymore.
That is how isolation begins.
Not with force
but with fear.
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🚩 He Humiliated Me
There were moments he spoke to me in ways that made me feel small.
Mocking my emotions.
Dismissing my tears.
Blaming me for his anger.
Making scenes that left me embarrassed.
And slowly, I started questioning myself.
Was I too sensitive?
Was I dramatic?
No.
I was being disrespected.
But when humiliation is followed by apologies,
your brain clings to the apology,not the damage.
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🚩 I Felt Scared, but I Minimised It
There were moments my body reacted before my mind did.
Moments I froze.
Moments my chest tightened.
Moments I felt powerless.
But I explained it away.
“He’s just stressed.”
“He had a hard life.”
“He loves me.”
“He didn’t mean it.”
Dear Sister,
When you start rationalising your fear,
that’s a red flag.
Love shouldn’t activate survival mode.
✦
🚩 He Crossed Boundaries, and I Froze
There were times I said no and wasn’t taken seriously.
Times I felt uncomfortable but didn’t fight back.
Times my body shut down because arguing felt pointless.
Freezing is a trauma response.
I didn’t understand that then.
I only knew I felt confused
and ashamed for not reacting stronger.
But survival is not weakness.
It’s protection.
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🚩 I Tried to Leave. But I Couldn’t
I saw the instability.
The jealousy.
The control.
The anger.
And I still stayed.
Because attachment can feel stronger than logic.
The highs were intense.
The apologies felt convincing.
The good days made me question the bad ones.
I thought if I loved him better,
behaved better,
spoke softer
maybe things would stabilise.
They didn’t.
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🚩 Even After It Ended, It Didn’t End
After I broke up with him, he didn’t disappear completely.
There were moments of monitoring.
Moments of appearing unexpectedly.
Moments of feeling watched.
Years later, he found my social media under a different name.
Thirty videos liked.
Not out of love.
Out of control.
That feeling of being observed, tracked, unsettled
isn’t romantic.
It’s intimidation.
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Dear Sister,
I saw the red flags.
I just didn’t want to accept what they meant.
Because if I accepted them,
I would have had to accept that the person I loved
was hurting me.
And that is one of the hardest truths a woman can face.
If you are seeing red flags right now
and still feeling attached
you are not stupid.
You are not weak.
You are bonded.
And bonds built through intensity and fear
are hard to break.
✦
In Part 2, I will tell you why I ignored the red flags.
Why I defended him.
Why I blamed myself.
Why leaving felt harder than staying.
Because understanding that part
is what finally set me free.
✦
Sister,
You deserve love that feels calm.
You deserve love that feels safe.
You deserve love you don’t have to survive.
With love,
Josefina. ✦
