ok... so today is my 10 year anniversary of my broken marriage. It's not been a fun day, but I have been around friends.
Here is the letter to my ex. I feel a little better after getting it all out. Posting here to cyberspace just to get it out there. He'll never read it but it makes me feel better that someone will.
Dear he who will not be named.
I seriously doubt you even have an inkling of a clue what today is… but to you out there, in whatever dark hole you’re hiding in, Happy 10th anniversary and thank God I don’t have to deal with you any more!
Honestly I could wipe my hands of it and leave it right there, but this is my therapy letter and so I’m going to stick it up your butt.
When we married 10 years ago today, I’ll admit I didn’t know you very well, time has revealed all of that to me and more. But I did love you and I promised to always stand by you and support you in your decisions. To follow you wherever you wanted to go, to help you and be there for you the best I could. Then three months into the marriage some kind of switch flipped and I became helpless to understand you or even reach you. I’m sorry your father died. I loved him too. I’m sorry that financially I couldn’t go with you to the funeral. I’m sorry that I couldn’t do or say anything to help you understand where I was coming from when I tried to talk to you about my life or my feelings. I’m sorry that I couldn’t do anything right for you. I couldn’t clean right, or cook right, I didn’t support you enough in your life. I’m sorry you couldn’t see that the choices I made to get a second job and work a little freelance was to counteract the fact that you didn’t have a job or income for a good part of our marriage. Your lack of tolerance and misunderstanding was frustrating to me, but I still tried to serve you the best I could. I was there for you, you just never chose to see me there. You always turned to someone else for entertainment or a listening ear. I was always an afterthought.
I remember so many moments when I felt like no more than trash under your feet. The picture evidence left over from our trip to the lake with your friends, the houseboat trip where you just had to take your young friend along… and for that matter every vacation we took where you had to invite someone else along. I tried so hard to hold things together when you went through your depression. I cringe when I think of the verbal cuts you started to make against me when I didn’t even know what I’d done wrong. Your lack of tolerance for anything I did or didn’t do. My family watched me change from a confident young woman to a doormat.
And then the year separation started when I had no idea where you were for months at a time. I was very respectful of your space, only checking in with friends around you every few weeks if I hadn’t heard anything. I was so worried about you. I still remember the day I found you on Match.com less than 3 months after you left writing to any girl who popped up. I remember saving you a seat in the circle that Christmas because you promised to show up and then never did. I was so embarrassed in front of my family. I still tried to reach you though. I brought you your gifts. Tried to be kind. Tried to spend any moment with you that you’d let me spend even if sucked.
The night in September when you told me you’d decided that it was over and handed me the papers after taking me to dinner and chatting so amiably - then saying it was the only “honorable” thing to do. There was no honor in what you did. There is never honor in a broken marriage based on selfishness alone.
And so I began to heal. Actually I had already healed. Thanks to Michelle and my divorcebusting friends I was already stronger than I had ever been in my life. I remember the night a few days latter that I returned the papers to you signed and sealed. I had just been to see Peter Pan… the story of the little boy who never grew up. It fit so well. I remember thinking that maybe I should say something. But I couldn’t find anything to say so I just walked away.
That was the last time I ever had to see you or talk to you. I walked away that night broken, but not beaten. God knew I needed our broken marriage to teach me just what I needed to know for my next relationship.
I totally believe that our marriage was not a mistake. I believe what I went through at your hands was the best learning experience I could ever have had in my life. I still love you – but you have proven to me that that love is entirely misplaced.
This anniversary has hurt me a lot more than I had expected. Now that I’m stronger I do have a few regrets. I hope you know just how much I let you get away with in that divorce. I let you walk owing me well over $10,000 in unpaid rent, car payments and bills. I let you take everything but my personal items. I didn’t smear your reputation among your friends or family even though they all thought you were crazier than I did. I didn’t date until well after the divorce was over. I know I can’t say the same for you.
Over the years I have found a comfortable level of peace. I don’t think anyone other than others who have been abandoned can really understand the level of confusion, that I have suffered over this. There really is no real closure moment it just has to sink in over time. I have found happiness in my life. I can only hope the same for you.
You once told me that there was someone else out there better for you. 8 years later I know you haven’t found her yet. I know that out of the thousands (literally) of girls you’ve contacted you’ve only had a few dates and nothing lasting. I know that you are on your 6th or 7th job and are unemployed yet again. I know that your best friend went to jail and because of it your name got dragged through the mud and you lost more friends and in essence your home. I know that you lost your dream job, your hobby, and continue to make questionable decisions that lead me to believe that you are possibly one of the unluckiest people on the planet.
I hope that some day you will peer out of the life you are living long enough to realize that you had somebody in your life who loved you dearly. Who would have done just about anything to make it work, and who was willing to accept you as you were…and you threw me away. I’ve heard all of your excuses too. I know exactly how you feel about me. I know exactly what you have told other people about me. I know how well you have rewritten history in your mind to blame me for all of your troubles and bad decisions. I know you tell half truths about me and our marriage that make you look like a saint to your friends – and I know that it’s been long enough that you really believe what you are saying. It bugs me, but then again it really doesn’t matter does it? I know what is real. God knows what is real… and honestly? I have a loving husband who lets me be myself. I have two wonderful, smart, beautiful kids that bless my life every day in ways I could never imagine. God has given me back everything I lost when you walked away from our marriage and more. And where are you? They say that the life well lived is the best revenge, and I believe it.
I guess that is all really. I guess what I really want from you is something I will never get. An apology. Acknowledgement that I really did try hard to be there for you and treat you with respect and kindness and that you never returned the favor. I’m not kidding myself. I know that not only can’t you see any of that, but that your narcissistic mind wouldn’t let you bow that far. I know that you blame me for the failed marriage even though you couldn’t say that to my face, and I’m pretty sure you can’t think of even one happy moment that we spent together. But that’s ok. Providence stepped in and got me out of there and spared me so much grief and anguish that I would have gotten from being with you over the last 8 of these 10 years.
So thanks Mr. No Name for not dragging me through your hell of a life. I know I’ll still continue to think about you. Hopefully not as often any more. You don’t deserve the real estate in my mind. It’s time for me to focus on my family now. My kids and my loving husband need me as much as I need to be there for them.
I do hope that you eventually find the happiness and peace you are looking for. And I hope that someday you might come to realize just how much you were loved.
