Dear Former Husband

I am writing to you here because it would be pointless to try to communicate these things to you in real life. Were you a rational person I might give it a go but, having tried so many times for so many years, I already know that you reside on a different planet and there is no space shuttle that could seem to bridge the gap!

First of all...I am still probably really mad at you but I haven't allowed myself to "go there" because, again, what would be the point? I am SO incredibly happy to be free of you, your rules, and your judgments that I have figured why dwell on the past?

Yet I still have to deal with you now because of the kids and I have, and will continue to, be positive with them about how much their Daddy loves them and validate their love for you.

My therapist tells me the reason why I have dreams where I'm really angry at you is because I AM but because I refuse to acknowledge this while I'm awake it has to come out somehow.

So...now is my chance to tell you a few things...
The funny thing is that even though you've been sober for around 18 months - you're still the same manipulative, bitter person you always were. Everyone else is screwing you and taking advantage of you. You are smarter than everyone else. Your rules are better than how everyone else does things. Everyone else is stupid and should be punished if they don't follow your rules or EVEN WORSE if you have to do something you don't want to do.

I think the point I'm trying to make here is that, YES I am angry. I don't like you. Your opinions of me are unwelcome and unacceptable.

I will continue to keep to myself all of the terrible things you did and not bring them up with you, nor share them with your supporters (Mom and Dad and the fiance). Believe it or not, even your friends can see through you. They think it's really strange that you became engaged to and moved into your daughter's Kindergarten teacher's house within 2 months of your first date. Did you bother to tell your fiance or your parents WHY YOU HAD ONLY ONE overnight/week in the Parenting Plan? It's not because I'm a bitch - it's because you passed out repeatedly while they were in your care and because you were emotionally abusive to them while drinking (remember the line about how you were going to "grab my cat by his fucking tail and slam his skull into the concrete?" - did you share that one with your fiance and her two cats).

People have known your business was going to fail from the minute I was out of the picture and you opened up in the most expensive location in town with no real plan other than to "sell a lot".

Even though you continue to minimize what I did for your business, your clients, your friends, your family all know that it was ME and my skills that made your business what it was. Without me you would have been some guy wrenching in his garage. You telling me that the things on my resume were "overstated" and that they were "between me and my employer" hurt me alot. Again. But I have been working on it, figuring out why it was I still thought that I would get approval from you or why I needed it. I guess maybe it would have been some sort of apology to hear that you valued what I had done? Silly, huh?

Speaking of which, can I also mention that everyone who hears that you kept my bike thinks it is about the shittiest thing? They don't know the half of it!

Let's see...what else is there...I know there must be more inside...

Oh, yeah, your suicide note to me...the one that you saved somewhere and kept secret from me for 5 years - only to give it to me with a fresh addendum as our divorce unfolded. You remember that one? The one titled "The Top 10 Reasons to Blow My Fucking Head Off" - I've mentioned in there a few times.

In turns out I was the #1 reason. And, of course, let's not forget the line - "Hope finding my headless corpse doesn't fuck you up too bad, bitch!"

Maybe it would have fucked me up less than spending the next 5 years of my life living with someone who:
*  Resumed drinking, drank to the point of blacking/passing out EVERY SINGLE NIGHT (kind of hard to feel like having sex with someone who was laying on the carpet with drool running out of his mouth the night before)
*  Had me cowering in fear that his anger was going to snap at some point and he was going to stab me (for some reason I always thought that's what it would be).

You're really quite a winner!

Do you remember when we first worked together? You were always so sarcastic that I asked one day, "Do you hate me or are you always like this?" - well it turns out after 15 years it was both! You did hate me and you are always like that. Of course, at 20 years old I thought, "Gee. This guy acts like he hates me but says he doesn't. I think I should marry him!" Guess I'm not so smart either.

Let me flip through my mental rolodex here - we had had a lot of years together...I know there are other things I am angry about.


Oh yeah, you telling me a year before the divorce finally happened that even the first year we were married that you used to stay late at work because you dreaded coming home to me. Why didn't you just leave then? I was 22! I could have done something totally different with my life other than giving you my inheritance and sacrificing my career for your business and subjecting myself to emotional abuse.


Other "deal breakers" other than those listed above (passing out with the kids in your care being a big one)...
The big scene you caused in front of the kids when I asked you to spend the night at a friends house because when I asked you, "Would you ever hurt me?" you replied, "Why would I fuck up my life like that?". Remember that one, where the kids and I were crying, you almost pulled my arm out of its' socket, and then you drove off so drunk you were about to pass out after threatening to drive yourself into the reservoir? Yeah, that was a deal breaker.


And the funny thing is that this happened a full year before the divorce. I called your Dad and your Sister and all your friends. I finally had to tell them you had been drinking about 16 drinks every night and that you had been suicidal for a long time. I thought they would help you. And us. But they couldn't. And they don't seem to remember this now - and of course, anyway, you were only like that because I was such a horrible bitch.

Well...I'm getting really tired of writing this. It's all pretty boring to me now. I've been thinking about and/or supressing all of this stuff for so long and I'm really not interested in continuing to let it bother me.

As I said, Former Husband, your opinions and judgments of me are unwelcome. I choose to air your "dirty laundry" here because only 4 people who also know you even know of the existence of this blog. Everyone else in your life will eventually figure you out and see you for who you are, as will your children, I don't need to help them get to that point by telling them what you did to me.

Signed,
Your Former Wife Who Quit Trying to Please You 2 Years Ago but Who Should have Quit Trying 15 Years Ago.

A Statistic

So today I became one of the millions of "laid-off" people you read about.

I can add this statistical fact to: Divorced, Bankrupt, Foreclosed. And now Unemployed.

This is all in the course of 2 years. Quite an accomplishment, really.

But here's the upside: I'm only 37 years old, I am smart and motivated. I have saved a small nest egg during the past year. I am no longer married to an alcoholic. I received a 4 week severance package plus my vacation time - all in all I have about 6 weeks before my cash flow becomes zero.

This is my opportunity to do what I want and am good at and I have 6 weeks to get this in order.

This is not to say I'm not shocked, depressed, angry, and numb.

Mainly I am numb right now. And it is time to go to bed.

A Letter

January 1, 2009

Dear Daddy,

You’ve been gone for…25 years.

After you died I wasn’t sad. I was relieved. And angry with you because I felt like, one last time, you had to mess up a chance for me to have a friend. To not be alone.

I was supposed to spend the night with Lisa the night you died. When Mommy picked me up at school and told me you had died my first thought was, “I’m not going to get to send the night with Lisa. I shouldn’t even bother asking because the answer will be no and I will look like I don’t care that you died.” Even though I didn’t care.

I spent so much time alone the first 12 years of my life.

You liked people.

Do you know what it is like to be isolated?

How empty it feels?

How lonely?

How unloved you feel?

I just wanted to be with you. To be part of something. To feel loved.

I can still feel the hollow, lonely, empty place in my soul.

What you did feels like it took part of my soul.

Before you died you asked for me to come to your hospital room – you wanted to give me your parting words. The wisdom of your life. Your hopes and dreams for me.

It meant nothing.

And I feel guilty for that.

I wanted to care. I didn’t want to be angry at you. I wanted you to be the Dad that I could trust.

And I didn’t trust you. I believed through your whole illness. Through all your apologies as you grew weaker and weaker and closer to “God”.

That if the doctors found a way to make you better that things would be the same.
This is the only thing I believed.

I didn’t understand how you could be such a hypocrite and “repent”. Did you really believe that all you have to do is say you’re sorry and then it goes away?

It doesn’t work that way.

And anyway, you never apologized to me.

You only apologized to Mommy after we had been summoned to the side of your bed to read the scriptures to you.

And only once as I recall.

And, from my perspective, you were sorry because you knew what you had done was wrong and now you were dying.

Convenient.

I have never felt your presence since you died. I know it is because I have shut you out. I’ve felt Joel and Lauren’s presence – anytime you’ve been on the periphery I’ve closed myself. It probably hurts you. I’m sorry that I haven’t forgiven you.

It’s still the same. I want to care about you but, really, I have to protect myself first.

If I allow myself to care about you then I will get hurt.

Not by your fists – that was never what really hurt.

But by the loneliness.

By the withdrawal of attention and love.

So here I am now. I’m 37. I just got a divorce last year and not a week – sometimes not even a day - goes by where I don’t think, “Thank God I’m not married to that man anymore”.

I want to be happy.

Mommy lives close by.

You really did a number on her.

Did you love her?

Why did you hurt her?
She is kind.

She used to plead with you not to hurt her.

How do you think it feels to hear your mother beg like an animal? Beg not to be beaten?

I can still hear her voice pleading with you.

I wanted to kill you.

Do you remember when you made her take off her clothes so she couldn’t run away from you while you beat her? And she was so afraid that she ran out of the house naked?

Why did you do that to her?

I hate you.

I don’t want to hate you.

I hate you!

And here I am again with that hollowness in my soul.

Is it the spot in your soul where you are supposed to feel love for your father?

On the day of your funeral I remember riding in the hearse. As we drove through downtown Des Moines I saw one of your students, a young man who you had mentored. He had been late for the funeral and as the hearse drove by he realized he had missed your service (very touching – the dutiful daughter had to read a poem – everyone was so touched because I read it without even crying). The instant of this realization, this young man crumpled to the sidewalk in anguish.

You see, you had made a difference in his life. And he was sad that you were dead.

And I wanted to feel that…

Self-Pity

Time to examine another emotion after several days respite. I persevere with this because it seems to be helping. This one I am writing about while the emotion is happening.

Self-Pity:
Physical Sensation - tears right on the verge of falling, eyes welling up - I blink them back because I know if I let them start I will be on a full-blown crying jag, distinct, somewhat sharp pain in my chest, and the feeling like I am a balloon who has been popped.

Mental - Well, the "poor me" inner-voice is a given which is also accompanied by the old familiar, "No one knows what it's like to be me. No one understands me" voice/feeling (If I could eliminate that feeling entirely I think I would be a much happier person - really how would anyone truly understand another? We all see things through our own experiences and filters so why can't we let go of the expectation/desire for others to understand us).

There is a little bit of defensiveness, too. As in, "I am entitled to this feeling. Look at all I have gone through. Look at all I've given up."

Waah, Waah. A little bit of self-scorn, too. A voice saying, "Come on you big-baby. Why are you going to cry about something so little and stupid."

Defensive voice, "Because! Because all the little things add up and I'm tired. I'm tired of it."

Back to "Oh, poor me. Poor me. Why does it (life?) have to be like this?

Amazing how the same pattern just circles around and around the brain:
Poor Me.
I am entitled to feel this way.
Big Baby!
Repeat!

This exercise just helped immensely. I recommend examing emotions as if they are a rock and you are a curious scientist. It really diffuses the emotion's ability to affect your overall thinking.

Examining Emotions

I have been working on a technique where I allow myself to fully experience all the emotions that flow through me without judging them but without allowing them to affect my overall experience. It has been suggested to me, that a person can examine their emotions as if they were a rock - turning them over and over and observing them in a detached manner.

It has been interesting to me how many different emotions a person may experience in a given day (or at least I do). Some of them are very similar - to the point that they could easily be confused for another if one were not examining them like a rock. Also, some of them are so subtle that a person might not realize they are happening until things start to get filtered through that lens. A few I have examined this week...

Anger (over a letter from an attorney) - Physical Experience: Feeling of vision disturbance, Tight in chest/shoulders, increased heart rate; Mental Experience: Very judgmental and tendency to be argumentative about topics that I actually know I am wrong about.

Jealousy (over custom kitchen cabinets of all things!! I was working on a document for a company I am doing some marketing for and a builder had written about the custom cabinets in their homes and I had a, "When will I ever get to have something nice like this?" thought). This was one of those FLASH emotions that I might have either classified as "sad" or not even known went through my mind but could have led to filtering things negatively - Physical Experience: Felt it in the chest/heart area; Mental Experience - Whiny voice in head and then, interestingly, a judgmental voice telling myself, "These things don't matter. Why do you buy into the American materialism? Are you like all those people?"


Grief (I think this was brought on by a dream that I don't remember - I was in the shower and I had this flash of grief for my kids having to be the "kids whose parents got a divorce". The kids who have to shuffle back and forth between their parents house. Grief for the loss of the life I had envisioned in my head) - Physical Experience: An instant urge to drop to my knees and sob; Mental Experience: Mind wildly running a reel with all my perceived failures and questioning whether I did everything I could (intellectually, of course, I know that I did everything I could and more) and then moving directly into...

Fear - (this is where the mind went from Grief which I'll bet happens to people ALL the time because they can't deal with the emotion of grief. This is when I started worrying about my son taking his first ride on a school bus that day on freshly icy roads) Physical Experience: Eyebrows raised, but other than that little facial expression. Sinking feeling in stomach; Mental Experience: Like a snowball rolling. Thinking about all the other things that could happen and mentally searching for a way to stop these "bad" things from happening.

Indignation: (Over a summons to talk to my Supervisor about some of my "extended appointments") This was actually one of the hardest ones for me to examine objectively. Physical Experience: Similar to anger - tightness high in chest, tension in shoulders/neck; Mental Experience: I guess indignant sums it up best. Again, very similar to anger but the mind is racing thinking of justifications and evidence that the other person is "out of line" in their belief. Very, very defensive mentally. Also a very strong element of flight/wanting to flee with a sense of urgency. Inner dialogue of, "Well, the person does have a point. But they should consider this and this and this and what about this and this and this??"

Living

Six months.

Rediscovering (discovering?) self.

Moments of extreme happiness.

And despair.

And then the happiness returns. And it is so alive.

It's what matters.

Living.

Just a Ring

Someone I trusted stood in this room and looked me blankly in the eyes.

I told him how crushed I was when he asked me to put my ring back on when nothing had changed.

And there was no connection. Just blankness.

I trusted him.

I thought he loved me.

And he loved me as much as an alcoholic can when they are approaching the end stage of their disease.

I can feel him here right now. Looking at me. The way he did that day.

And the way he looks at me now.

I do get scared.

I was very scared with him.

How did I let myself get in that spot?

How did I not see it coming?

He told me he loved me.

He told me he hated me.

He told me we had nothing in common.

And that we should have realized it years ago.

And that he regrets having children with me.

That is hate.

Despising.

How do you live with someone who despises you?

Who can find nothing redeeming in you?

Release the grief.

The pain and sadness of being hated.

And now what?