After 25 years of marriage, my husband left me for a younger woman, Abby. They got married, went on their honeymoon, and moved back—into our home. But when they walked in, red tape ran through every room. “What’s this?” Abby asked. I looked her in the eye and said, “It marks what’s mine—before you pretend it ever was.”

They called me dramatic. I called it boundaries.

Within two weeks, I left. I moved into my friend Lila’s beach house and rebuilt myself. I walked the shore, painted driftwood, and opened a small art studio—Red Tape Art—turning pain into peace. I forgave, but never returned. Abby left him soon after, and he begged me to come back. I didn’t.

One day, a young woman came into my studio, said my story gave her courage to leave her cheating partner. She left with one of my painted shells—and I realized my healing had become someone else’s hope.

That heartbreak? It didn’t break me. It freed me.

Now, I tell every woman who asks: Draw your red tape. Reclaim your space. Your pain is not the end—it’s the canvas for something beautiful. You’re not broken. You’re becoming.