Downsizing: Ex to Rural

Susan Walz came from an educated, well off family, and when the choice was put to her she married and settled in the countryside, believing she had caught hold of something that would save her. What followed was years of swallowing things. Her husband handed his duty to his parents over to her and then complained she was not generous enough. His mother made trouble constantly and never stopped. He also brought in a childhood friend and her son, who lived with the family for sixteen years. Susan endured all of it until nodules grew in her body and depression set in, and even then the criticism kept coming. At the end of that life she understood one thing plainly, that patience never bought her any peace and only made the people hurting her bolder. She gets a second life with that knowledge, back at the point where the marriage was still ahead of her.