In the late summer of 1983 I landed in Birmingham England and moved into the home of a British family with six children (4 boys and 2 girls). It was the start of a one year student exchange program, where I would be fully immersed in British culture. This was before cell phones or internet, so "total immersion" was an apt description for my coming year. My British family was much more traditional than my American family. British family life meant that breakfast was served every morning. This was in stark contrast to my usual morning of scarfing down cold cereal with a head of dripping wet hair before racing off to catch the school bus. We all gathered around the table while mum, dressed neat

The moment I realized that my ex-husband Mitch was a pathological liar, was the moment that a voice inside of me—a voice I hadn't heard previously, said enough. Enough listening to his stories, his excuses, his carefully crafted way of dancing around explanations until he landed on the sweet spot. When he found the sweet spot, and delivered, he knew I would listen, I would believe, and I would turn the blame toward myself. It was the moment I instantly recognized the pattern. When I found something suspicious on his phone, Mitch masterfully switched the focus of the conversation to the invasion of privacy I had so egregiously committed. Sometimes he would turn the tables completely and incr