Finding My Rhythm: Healing, Leading, Becoming

It’s hard to explain the exact moment you stop feeling like a person in your own story. It doesn’t happen all at once. It’s slow—quiet. Like water wearing down stone.

My husband was bright, ambitious, and driven. He was climbing the ladder, always reaching for the next rung. My career, on the other hand, began to bend around his. At first, I was okay with this. I had made a conscious decision to be a mother, to be present. And I was good at it. I knew early on that I was the safer, more patient parent. He didn’t have the tolerance for the chaos of caregiving, and while he liked to play the role in public, the truth behind closed doors was very different.

He loved to tell people how he was the one who came home early during those early years when I was working long hours. Technically, that was true. But what he never shared was how many times he called me while I was working—asking when I’d be home, if I could take over. And the moment I walked through the door, he’d vanish. As if he had clocked out and tagged me in.

Even then, I made peace with it. Told myself it was better this way. That by taking more of the parenting, he could keep rising—and maybe that would finally ease the discomfort he had with me earning more.

He always brought that up. My salary. My job. My success. It clearly bothered him, even though he never admitted it outright. He needed to be the one who earned more. Needed to feel bigger. More important. So I shrunk.

I now see how this all fed a damaging narrative: that my work didn’t matter. That I didn’t matter.

I learned—subtly, painfully—that it wasn’t safe to outshine him. That my ambition had to dim for his ego to stay intact.

As he rose through the ranks, he thrived in the spotlight. Department parties, networking events—he lived for them. And I, the introvert, would accompany him like an accessory he carefully selected to match his suit.

He always had strong opinions about how I should dress. It had to be “appropriate”—his word. Not mine. I always thought I dressed elegantly. But his standards always seemed rooted in appearances that served him, not me.

At these events, I would quietly ask him to stay close. To not leave me alone. Small talk was never easy for me. These rooms—buzzing with confident colleagues and calculated conversation—felt intimidating.

And every time, he would promise.
And every time, he would break that promise.

He’d walk in proudly with me on his arm—his moment to display his perfect wife. And then he’d disappear. Into the crowd. Into the spotlight. Into the validation he so desperately needed. And I would be left—adrift. In a sea of strangers. Invisible.

If I was lucky, I’d find someone to talk to. Sometimes, another physician. If the conversation seemed to flow—if I started to feel seen, heard, even appreciated—he would appear. Interrupt. Redirect. Move me away. And then leave me, again.

It was like I was only allowed to shine in his shadow. Only allowed to be seen when it reflected well on him.

Every time this happened, I felt smaller.

I started to wonder:
Am I not pretty enough?
Am I boring?
Am I unworthy of attention unless he gives it to me?

The voice in my head grew louder: Something is wrong with me.

He didn’t need to say it outright. The way he acted said it all. I wasn’t a partner. I was a prop. Something to be managed. Dressed. Displayed. Then discarded.

This is the insidious nature of being devalued. It’s not always loud. It doesn’t always leave bruises. But it leaves something worse—an erosion of self-worth. A gnawing doubt. A chronic sense that you are never enough.

Now, looking back, I understand.
I wasn’t the problem.
I wasn’t weak.
I was being diminished—strategically, consistently—so that someone else could feel tall.

But I see it now. And I will never let anyone shrink me again.