Writing this with tears in my eyes.

I just finished reading It Ends With Us, and now I’m watching the movie.

I know.

Reading the book was already emotional enough. But watching it? Watching the characters I’ve imagined for hours suddenly come alive? Seeing the expressions, hearing the voices, watching the pain play out on a screen?

It hurts differently.

I’ve cried more than I expected.

Ryle was everything society tells us to want.

Handsome.

Tall.

Dark.

Built.

Successful.

A neurosurgeon.

The complete package.

Until he wasn’t.

Looking back, I realized something the book quietly teaches us:

Red flags are red from the beginning.

They don’t become red after marriage.

They don’t magically appear after children.

Most times, they were always there.

We just painted them another color because we wanted the relationship to work.

The first time Lily met Ryle, he was angry.

Really angry.

He stormed onto a rooftop and kicked a chair with so much force because he couldn’t control his emotions.

Lily saw it.

But then she thought what many of us would think.

“Should I really judge someone because he kicked a chair?”

I probably would’ve thought the same thing.

After all, everyone gets angry.

Right?

But that’s exactly how it starts.

Not always with a slap.

Not always with a punch.

Sometimes it starts with an inability to regulate anger.

Sometimes it starts with shouting.

Slamming doors.

Punching walls.

Exploding over little things.

And we call it stress.

We call it passion.

We call it “that’s just how they are.”

The book forced me to remember moments in my own life that I had buried.

I once had a situationship with someone who looked perfect on paper.

Handsome.

Rich.

Tall.

A tech guy.

Again… the complete package.

One night, after we had an argument, I woke up to the sound of him punching a wall.

Not tapping it.

Punching it.

Hard enough that his hands were bleeding.

I was scared.

I kept asking, “Elvis, what happened?”

He wouldn’t answer.

He only said I’d done something wrong but refused to explain.

Instead of communicating…

He punched a wall.

Back then, I tried to understand it.

Today, I see it differently.

Another relationship taught me another lesson.

Someone once told me my boyfriend had slapped a girl.

Not just any girl.

A friend of mine.

I refused to believe it.

Impossible.

He was gentle.

Quiet.

Calm.

Or at least that’s who I believed he was.

People laugh whenever I describe him as gentle now.

Maybe because they saw something I refused to see.

The story was that he slapped her because she touched his bracelet.

A bracelet.

I remember thinking, That can’t be true.

Until one day after we broke up.

I went to see him.

I was standing in front of him, trying to get his attention.

Without saying a word…

He shoved me.

Not a playful push.

Not a gentle nudge.

The kind of shove that says, Get out of my way.

That was the moment I realized the story I’d refused to believe wasn’t so impossible after all.

These days, even outside relationships, I pay attention.

There’s someone at work I used to have a little crush on.

Kind.

Helpful.

Funny.

But I also noticed something else.

He complains a lot.

Raises his voice often.

Comes across as arrogant sometimes.

Today, one of my colleagues came to the office with her children.

His first reaction was irritation.

“The kids can’t stay here.”

Maybe he had a valid reason.

Maybe he was thinking about office rules.

But the way he said it lacked kindness.

Later that same day, I was helping a client.

One of the client’s little boys was adorably chubby.

Smiling, this same colleague looked at me and joked,

“Miss, is this your son? He looks just like you.”

I laughed.

Everyone would have laughed.

Because it was “just a joke.”

But something about it didn’t sit right with me.

Maybe he meant nothing by it.

Maybe he truly intended it as harmless banter.

Or maybe it was one of those jokes people make that leave the other person wondering if they were just insulted.

The point isn’t whether he meant to hurt me.

The point is that moments like these remind me to pay attention—not just to what people say, but to patterns in how they treat others, how they handle frustration, and whether they show empathy.

Because that’s what It Ends With Us made me think about.

Patterns.

Not isolated moments.

Patterns.

The saddest part of the book isn’t the violence.

It’s the cycle.

Lily grew up watching her father abuse her mother.

She promised herself she’d never end up in that situation.

Yet somehow…

History found its way back to her door.

That’s what scares me.

Not because I’m married.

I’m not.

But because marriage feels so permanent.

People say things like,

“Marriage is for better or worse.”

“Till death do us part.”

“Endure.”

“Stay.”

And sometimes I wonder…

At what point does endurance become self-abandonment?

Love should never require you to ignore your safety, your dignity, or your peace.

One thing this book reminded me of is that love isn’t blind.

Sometimes we choose to close our own eyes.

So if there’s anything I want you to take away from this, it’s this:

Don’t ignore patterns.

Don’t excuse every outburst.

Don’t romanticize emotional instability.

Don’t convince yourself that you’ll be the one person who changes someone who doesn’t think they need to change.

People are capable of growth.

People can change.

But change usually begins with accountability—not with someone else overlooking harmful behavior.

If you haven’t read It Ends With Us, please do.

Not because it’s a love story.

But because it’s a story about choices.

About cycles.

About courage.

And about learning that sometimes, the hardest words you’ll ever say are the ones that save your life:

“It ends with us.”

Until next time.

With love. ❤️