The day I finally had the opportunity to see Dubai — a place I had never been in my life — I should have felt excited. I was on my way to Perth, Australia, to see my daughter and my grandchildren. It was the trip of a lifetime.

He refused to come with me, yet I still had to pay for the entire trip myself. Flying Emirates via Dubai from Paris CDG should have felt glamorous. Instead, it started with humiliation: he refused to take me to the airport.

So, with a 24-hour journey ahead of me and January cold biting through my coat, I dragged my suitcase onto a train and travelled three hours alone to Charles de Gaulle.

Three weeks in Perth were heaven — warm weather, real love, my daughter’s smile, my grandson’s arms around my neck. For the first time in a long time, my nervous system relaxed. I remembered what it felt like to be safe.

But on the journey home, reality hit again.
Twenty-eight hours flying back to France via Dubai. Five hours stuck in Dubai airport — a place I would have loved to explore, but wasn’t “allowed” to stay even one day longer. Straight back. No pause. No freedom.

Landing at CDG, exhausted, hungry, skint after paying for everything, I made my way from the airport to the train station, then endured another long journey back to Limoges. He refused to pick me up.

He said he “missed” me — but left me stranded after 28 hours of travel.
That’s not love. That’s control.

In that moment, freezing on the platform, trying to carry my luggage alone, something inside me broke free: this had never been love.

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Why the Brain Remembers This Moment: The Neuroscience Behind the Realisation

1. The nervous system recognises patterns long before we do

Repeated abandonment during moments of high stress — like travel, illness, exhaustion — trains the amygdala to recognise a threat pattern:
“I cannot rely on this person to keep me safe.”

Over time, this breaks the illusion of love.

2. Safety vs. danger comparison (limbic contrast effect)

In Perth, your entire body shifted into the parasympathetic state — calm, connected, supported.
Returning to his behaviour forced your system back into hypervigilance: alert, anxious, tense.

This contrast creates what psychologists call a limbic rupture: the emotional brain stops believing the lies.

3. Coercive control disrupts the prefrontal cortex

Controlling partners often use logistical cruelty:

• refusing to drive you
• refusing to pick you up
• dictating your movements (“no staying in Dubai”)
• forcing you to spend your own money
• isolating you

This creates chronic stress, which fogs the prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain needed for clarity and decision-making. This is why abuse survivors often say:
“I didn’t see it until suddenly, I did.”

4. Emotional abandonment during physical exhaustion is a “neuro-break point”

When you walked out of CDG alone after 28 hours of travel, your body had nothing left to mask the truth. Safety, empathy, partnership — none were present.

Your brain integrated the full picture:
“This person only takes, controls, and withholds.
This is not love.”

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The final truth

This was not romance.
Not devotion.
Not partnership.

It was a system of control executed through:

• refusal of basic care
• financial burden
• emotional manipulation
• restriction of freedom
• abandonment disguised as “love”

Your nervous system remembered the truth before you did — and on that freezing platform in France, your whole being caught up.

This was never love.
It was control, plain and simple.

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