For too long, I lived for others… Now, I choose myself.
Sometimes a person wakes in the middle of an ordinary life and realises, with crushing clarity, that the voices of others have drowned out their own for far too long. That’s what happened to me. My name is Elizabeth, I’m forty-five, and I live in Manchester. As cliché as it sounds, only now have I understood—I’ve spent nearly half a century living by someone else’s rules. Not mine. And the ache of that truth is heavy, suffocating, relentless.
Recently, I met my old school friend, Emma. We hadn’t seen each other in almost a decade, and that reunion became my wake-up call. We talked for hours—about life, children, disappointments. Then, mid-conversation, I heard my own voice—not the woman I was, but the woman I’d become. Someone who existed by permission, not by choice. And I couldn’t bear it anymore.
It began in childhood. My parents—respectable, strict, unyielding—always knew what was best for me. They decided everything: who I could befriend, where I’d study, what I’d do, whose advice to heed. I dreamed of being a lawyer, but Mum and Dad insisted literature was more suitable. One day, without my knowledge, they enrolled me at university for an English degree.
I got in. And from then on, I walked a path that wasn’t mine. I studied without passion, without desire. I passed exams without grasping why. But my parents were proud. I was their “clever girl with a proper education.”
They even found me a job—teaching English at a local school. The thought of spending my life drilling grammar into indifferent students made me tremble. But I went. Because I always went where I was told.
Then came Robert. A colleague, the PE teacher. He proposed, and I—said yes. Not out of love, but because I wanted escape. I thought marriage meant freedom. How wrong I was. I’d only traded one cage for another.
Life with Robert was harsh. He was sharp-tongued, controlling, brooked no argument. To him, I was a maid, a cook, a woman on demand. Any plea for respect, for kindness, was met with scorn. I endured. Because I didn’t know how not to. Because silence had been my first lesson: obey, don’t argue, bend.
My only light was my daughter. She saved me. I gave her everything I’d been denied—love, support, the right to choose. I whispered to her, *Don’t live my life.* When she was still in primary school, I began stashing money, hiding it from Robert, determined to give her a chance.
After Year 7, I sent her to study in France. It wasn’t easy. I took extra work, sewed late into the night, denied myself every comfort—but she thrived. Now she’s at university in Paris. Bright, fierce, free. And I tell her, *Stay. Live how you want.* I endured for this.
My aunt—the only one who ever truly understood me—helped. Childless herself, she became my quiet guardian angel.
And now… now I stand before the mirror and ask, for the first time in forty-five years: *What do I want?* Not my parents. Not my husband. Not society’s expectations. *Me.*
I know the answer. I want freedom. I want quiet mornings with my books, work that doesn’t drain me. I want to pick up my embroidery again, the way I did as a girl. I want to rent a flat, leave Robert, start anew. I won’t be a shadow in someone else’s life anymore.
I’m looking for work now. Scouring listings for a place of my own. Step by step, I’m carving a path to the woman I should’ve been. No more victim. No more surrender. Late or not, I choose myself. And if anyone asks—do I regret it? Yes. But not the leaving. Only that I didn’t leave sooner.
