I have sat with that distinction for eight months. I am still sitting with it. I do not know if it leads anywhere specific, but it feels important not to lose it in favor of a simpler story.
## What I Did Not Do
There are things I did not do in the months of this dispute that I think are worth naming, because the story could easily be told as a story of escalation — of someone wronged going fully to war — and that is not what this was.
I did not go to her house unannounced. I did not contact her friends or her colleagues or anyone in her social world. I did not post about it publicly. I did not threaten her. I did not share her name or identifying information with anyone who did not need it for the process — not the lender, not the FTC, not anyone — beyond the factual account of what had happened.
I did not take over her finances or attempt to access her accounts. I did not try to find out what she had spent the loan on, beyond understanding that it had been used for household bills. That was hers to know and mine to leave alone. What she had spent the money on was not the question I was trying to answer.
I did not stop loving her. I know that sounds like a strange thing to include in a list of things I did not do, but it matters to the story because I think it is possible to love someone and to refuse to absorb their consequences simultaneously, and I needed to know that about myself before I could trust that I was handling this from the right place.