“I give the orders here,” my mom’s colonel boyfriend yelled—until I calmly told him who I really was.

But hearing it here in my childhood home, from a man wearing khaki shorts and drinking my dead father’s liquor, felt particularly vile. My career has been my priority. I said calmly. I’ve served my country. Service is honorable. Mark nodded, figning agreement. But let’s look at the good book. You know your Bible, don’t you? Ephesians 5:22. He didn’t wait for me to answer.

He recited it with the confidence of a TV evangelist. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife. He took a sip of bourbon. letting the words hang in the smoke filled air. You see, Missy, nature has an order, a chain of command. God, man, woman.

When you try to bypass that, when you try to be the man, well, you end up alone. You end up hard. He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, as if he were giving me the secret to life. A woman without a husband and children. She’s like a fruit tree that never blossoms. You can be a tall tree, you can be a strong tree, but if you don’t bear fruit, you’re just firewood. You’re biologically useless.

The insult hit me in the chest. It was a biological weapon designed to target the one thing my rank couldn’t protect. My choices as a woman. I have 5,000 sailors who look to me for guidance, I said, my voice. I see. I have mentored hundreds of young officers. I have a legacy, Mark. Mark laughed. It was a cruel barking sound.

Sailos, you think those kids care about you? They salute the uniform, Aubrey, not you. When you retire, when they strip those fancy stripes off your sleeve, who’s going to be there? The Navy doesn’t love you back. He gestured around the empty room with his cigar. Picture it. 10 years from now, you’re 60. You wake up in some cold apartment.

Maybe you have a cat, maybe two. You look at those medals on the wall. Can those medals hug you? Can a distinguished service medal hold your hand when you’re sick? Can a ribbon tell you it loves you? He sat back, satisfied, thinking he had delivered a fatal blow. I’m telling you this because I’m an alpha male, he said, tapping his chest.

I see the world how it is, not how you liberals want it to be. You chased a career to run away from your nature. And now, now you’re just a dried up old maid playing dress up in a man’s world. I looked at my mother. She was standing by the bookshelf, clutching a dish towel. Her eyes were wet. Surely she would say something. Surely she would defend her daughter against this misogynistic assault.

“Mom,” I said softly. Mom looked at Mark, then at me. She forced a smile that looked painful. He He just wants you to be happy, Aubrey. She stammered, her voice cracking. Mark knows about these things. He’s just worried you’ll be lonely like I was. The air left my lungs. It wasn’t the smoke. It was the betrayal. She didn’t see me.

She didn’t see the admiral. She didn’t see the woman who had sacrificed everything to ensure she was safe financially. She only saw what Mark told her to see. A failure. A spinster, a disappointment. Mark smirked, seeing my mother’s submission. He had won. He had successfully gaslighted her into believing his abuse was actually concern.

He had weaponized her fear of loneliness to control her. I stood up. The smoke was burning my eyes, but I refused to blink. I refused to let a single tear fall in front of this man. I think I’ll turn in, I said. My voice was devoid of emotion. Stoicism is not the absence of feeling. It is the mastery of it.

Inside, I was a nuclear reactor on the verge of meltdown. But on the outside, I was cool steel. You do that. Mark chuckled, reaching for the remote control. Go get your beauty sleep. God knows you need it at your age. I walked up the stairs, my footsteps heavy. I could hear the TV volume go up again. I could hear Mark ask my mother to fetch him some ice.

Before we continue to the next chapter, I need to ask you something. If you are listening to this and your blood is boiling right now, you are not alone. We have all met a mark, someone who tries to make themselves feel big by making you feel small. I want you to pause for a second and hit the like button if you believe a woman’s value is not defined by a ring on her finger.

and tell me in the comments if you were Aubrey, would you have slapped him or would you have stayed silent like she did? Type silence is power. If you think she’s doing the right thing by waiting, I closed the door to my childhood bedroom and leaned against it, breathing hard. The insults replayed in my head. Barren, firewood, useless.

Continue reading…