After my breakup with my long-term Narcissist I went through a phase of reaching out to people I hadn’t spoken to in a long time and I would try to make new friends everywhere I went. I was lonely and I was trying to put my life back together again with healthy activities and good friends to spend time with.

I sat on my client’s sofa showing them the comps in their neighborhood and explaining why it was a good time to put their house on the market. I was a year out from my ten year relationship with my ex-Narcissist and I was putting my life back together again.

In that year, I got my Real Estate license. Now I was out to conquer the world of home buying. I took a sip of tea, from the beautiful bone china cup and my phone started ringing. I looked down and saw that it was the big muscley, Vin Diesel type guy that I had just broken up with.

When you mix Sodium (Na) and water (H2O) together you will get an explosive chemical reaction. The same thing happens when you mix different personality types together with a dash of conflict.

When I was a young girl, there was a TV show called Fame that aired in the 80’s. It was about the experiences of young people studying at a school of fine arts. What was so memorable to me was a speech by Phylicia Rashad that occurred in the opening sequence of each episode. It went something like this, “You’ve got big dreams? You want fame? Well fame costs and right here is where you start paying – with sweat.”

We’ve been talking a lot about finances over the last few weeks and that’s because it’s a very important aspect of autonomy and your well-being. I’ve always said that when you don’t need anyone, you’re able to make better, healthier choices.

When people think of domestic abuse, they often think of the physical, verbal, or emotional forms of it. Rarely does financial abuse get mentioned, but it is actually more common than you might think. Simply put, financial abuse is when money is used as a tool for manipulation in relationships, and is something that the United Nations Foundation estimates happens in 99% of domestic violence cases.