When he forbade me from spending money on my own mother, I told myself he was simply careful, managing our household.

I had an explanation ready for every single thing he did, and every explanation let me stay.

I understand something now that I did not understand then, and I want to say it plainly, for any woman reading this who needs to hear it.

Women do not always stay because they fail to understand what is happening to them.

Sometimes they stay because they understand it far, far too late — because the understanding arrives in pieces, each one deniable, each one explained away, until one day the picture assembles all at once, on a screen in a locked room, and by then you have already given the man years of your life.

I was not stupid.