My transformation wasn't for love; it was a sacrifice on the altar of compromise, a slow, insidious erasure of my identity. The realization of his infidelity is a perverse liberation, a permission slip signed in betrayal that frees me from the self-imposed shackles. I no longer feel the need to dim my own light to match his dull glow. The pain of betrayal is sharp, but it cuts the ties that bind me to this charade of a marriage.
