“You know I love you ?” Maybe we all dream of that, of someone telling us that they love us. In any case, I can tell you that personally, I dreamed of a man telling me that he loved me.

Except that these words sometimes taste like tears. Let me explain.

As you may know, especially if you follow the work of my friend Randa from L’audace d’être soi (in French), manipulators can spot the cracks in the heart of their prey. Now my crack was my need for love. So a few years after having met and lived with this manipulator, the gradual erosion of my self-esteem had made its effect. I was the shadow of myself. I thought I deserved very little indeed.

But he kept repeating to me, as if he wanted to brainwash me: “Do you know I love you?“. He asked me if I believed him when he told me that. He added that it was very important that I believed him when he said that he loved me.

So yes I admit that today “You know I love you?” are no longer words that make me dream, because they were the foundation of the toxic relationship.

My invitation to you today my friend my sister, is to tell you “I love you” to yourself. I know that at first it will be neither natural nor easy. But it’s the key to happiness. And one day, it is my wish for us, a man will really love us my friend my sister. But he won’t need to convince us, because his actions will speak for themselves.