Director of Damage Control
Or: How to gaslight yourself while wearing Lululemon and pretending everything’s fine.
I find myself at a bit of a crossroads: wanting to share what’s happening right now versus staying the course with the backstory. And the answer is—I need to do both. Today, we’re rolling with the backstory. Friday, you’ll get the update.
Despite a few—let’s call them creative business investments (looking at you, Yeti cooler that mysteriously sailed off onto the boat)—things with High Roller were better.
Not “write-a-rom-com-about-it” better. More like “microwave-leftovers-and-they-didn’t-explode” better. Manageable. Tolerable. Slightly above dumpster fire.
He was in a groove—riding at 6 AM, chatting up riders at the front desk, playing unofficial mayor of the spin studio. And to be fair, he was funny. Charming. The kind of guy who could convince you the IRS accepts Venmo. He helped with pop-ups, gave feedback (sometimes even useful!), and genuinely wanted the studio to succeed—mostly because he’d decided he was the studio.
But—there’s always a but, right?—he also never did anything he didn’t want to do. Dinner with my friends? No thanks. Family gathering? Hard pass. Date night with me? Cue the sitcom laugh track. Meanwhile, I was the full-time PR department of our relationship—spinning chaos into charming dinner-party anecdotes.
So let’s talk about what we all do at some point: pretend everything is totally fine.
After the first adulterous episode (yes, first—love that for me), he begged me to keep our private life private. How could we possibly move forward if other people knew? First, he went for my pride:
“People will look at you differently. They won’t be inspired by you in class if they know…”
Secondly, he wanted me to consider his comfort:
“If your parents know, I’ll never be able to go over to their house again. If your friends know, I won’t be comfortable around them…”
Thirdly—as all seasoned narcissists do—he hit me with:
“I did nothing wrong.”
And lastly, the jugular:
“No one will believe you.”
So I stayed quiet.
Some of you might be nodding along, feeling a tiny sting of recognition. Because that’s the trick, right? It starts to mess with your head—that’s the entire point. You start thinking: Am I the crazy one? Did I screw up? Will everyone hate me? And if you’re anything like me, you care way too much about what other people think.
I have always cared what people think of me. I was that girl in high school who kept a handwritten log of every outfit I wore—heaven forbid I repeat a top in the same semester. I was the college girl who wouldn’t wear sweatpants to class—people might think I’d just rolled out of bed (scandalous). I was the bride who cared more about whether people liked my wedding than whether I liked my wedding (shoutout to the psych majors taking notes right now). And I was the business owner so obsessed with being respected that I couldn’t stomach the thought of someone pitying me.
So I got really good at excuses. One of my personal greatest hits? He has to work.
Eye. Roll.
Want to hear something extra unhinged? I thought his time with Work Wife was over. Not believed—that’s too generous. But as someone who lives for a gold star in other people’s heads, I thought I was finally showing him how worthy I was. I’d launched a successful business. It wasn’t struggling—it was thriving. And he was along for the ride.
Little did I know, in less than a year, it would all come crashing down.
