I woke up this morning, the day after you divorced me, with the realization that I needed to forgive you. Despite your willingness to admit fault on only 3 occasions in our marriage, you had your fair share of mistakes. For whatever reason, you were not brave enough to say “I’m sorry” to me. I don’t care about those reasons anymore. I used to wonder about my own sanity – were you really a saint and I that much of a screw-up for me to be the only one apologizing during our rough patches? No. No to both.
I forgive you, W. I forgive you for rejecting me, withholding your love from me in a conscious, deliberate, even talked about manner. I forgive for turning this on me – a young man when this started – and shaming me into thinking that I was a pervert for wanting to be intimate with his wife. I forgive you for the self-doubt and despair that I felt for years about us, the nightmares about you having an affair, the self-loathing that came about, all of the dreamed up reasons for why you would not open your heart to me. I forgive you for consistently choosing your mother over me in our marriage, not defending me against her inappropriate ways of trying to control our household. I forgive you for displacing your self-doubt onto me, ridiculing me even with curse words when you actually doubted yourself, ridiculing my body, my looks, my hair, my mannerisms, my smell, my maleness, my sense of humor, my cleanliness – all features that I’ve found to be solid, attractive, very normal in my own eyes and that of others. I forgive you for trying to pull me down in order to make yourself feel better or because of your hatred of me.
I forgive you for agreeing during our engagement that a marriage is for life, for reassuring me when I told you that I was giving you my most precious gift – my love and my life – and that I would only give it once in my life. I forgive you for betraying that promise, for leaving me committed before my God. I do not need you to complete my journey, but it was meant to be a joyful trip filled with companionship, not like this. I forgive you for taking my commitment when you were not truly willing to be evenly yoked with me on this life task of marriage.
This is the hardest piece to forgive you for: I forgive you for hurting Isaiah. I forgive you for selfishly taking from our beloved son his most precious place – his family, and for removing his father from more that half his days. For rarely letting him see his parents caress or show love while we were together. For placing him below your cleaning rituals, your mother, and your drinking. The love between S5 and I has conquered this new distance, but his little heart has been marred by permanent scars. I have hated you for doing this to him, but I also realize that your past abuse fogs your present choices regarding him. I have let this go in forgiving you. I will move heaven and earth to show S5 how worthy of love he is, and I will make a home as best I can so that I can receive him lovingly when you turn your back on him as well. I expect this, and will be ready. I forgive you.
I am free of having to serve as the explanation for our marital problems and for your depressive view of your life and the world. You are responsible for the consequences of your actions, and will face those consequences some day. That is not my concern. I am free! I am returning to the real me - the happy, healthy, attractive, productive, manly, intelligent, musical, spiritual, romantic, fatherly, athletic, carefree me that I was before we met and that I forgot during my time with you. I own forgetting myself, as I do the joy of rediscovery.
There is no place for my apologies in this letter. Because I filled our marriage with those, and it was not the full truth. I wish for you the truth, and from that truth - growth. And from that growth – peace, contentment, and identity.
I forgive you and have turned to face the future. No looking back. I hold only S5’s hand as we smile and laugh, facing the sun as we stroll onward on our journey.
