Dear Ex
Well I had to see you yesterday at Thanksgiving. I have been so happy to finally have had 8 months without having to talk to you, see you or spend time with you. But yesterday was the day I have been dreading- knowing my kids would not let me skip out on Thanksgiving and that you would inevitably be there. As soon as I saw you, I knew I did not want to have a conversation with you, or be within 5 feet of you, or even look at you. That was a hard situation since we were in the same room for much of the day. The kids probably noticed. You probably would have been happy to come over and chat with me, but I could not bear to listen to you – knowing you as well as I do. I could not bear to watch you dance- and remember that you are the worst dancer ever on the planet. I could not bear to listen to you go on and on about your life, knowing you as well as I do. I guess you could say that seeing you go about your life made me want to cringe. I feel badly about that. Our children are amazing- I wish I could be friends with you. but I know that risking that would be to risk having to deal with your subtle manipulation- always aimed at calling attention to yourself and always aimed at making you feel like you are oh so amazing. You never care about anyone’s feelings except your own- you use people to feed your ego. You love to screw people over just so you will feel better about your lack of accomplishments. I agree with our friend who told you that your music sucks- yes the music that you spent years and years trying to perfect with anyone who you felt could prop it up. And all the things I spent almost 20 years trying to help you with, are still not fixed. The sailboat still doesn’t work…. But you love to spill your emotions all over everyone. You love to emote in front of everyone with your crackly voice. You would love for the world to watch while you told everyone how you feel. You would love for the whole world to feel like they were your mother. You are stuck in that moment of having someone be your mirror. You are stuck in that moment of having someone be hurt by you. You are stuck in that moment of cheating on a love partner- it seems like you feel powerful in that moment when you have created a situation where you have cheated and lied. You seem to be stuck in that moment when you can look into someone’s eyes and finally feel powerful in making her ( because it is always a her) feel badly by rejecting her. Where did that all begin? Where did you learn to do that? Why do you enjoy that so much? I never understood why you enjoy making women feel badly. I never understood why you relish your own emotions while poking and robbing others of the freedom to have any emotion except just a blind happiness. It is good that you have chosen a rich older woman with a disease to be your partner. She is like your mother once again. She adores you because you take care of her. It is really creepy to watch. When you talked to me that last time, and you told me some story about her sister getting together with her ex in their older years, I knew I did not want to choose to be close to you. I realized that I would never be a friend to you, but rather just someone who you could use to make your current partner feel jealous.. Remember when you had your current girlfriend start sending me all those text messages? I had not even met her and you had her send me these long messages from you- I am sure she had no idea what you were doing I am sure she just thought that she was doing you a favor but did not see that you were doing your weird manipulation. How powerful you must have felt when I got upset at getting messages from someone I did not know telling me about how to treat my own children. M had no idea. She was still in the early stages of loving you.
I remember for the years that I stayed with you, your favorite thing to do, was to make me feel badly. You loved to refuse to marry me after I had 2 children with you. You loved to say mean things to me that no one who had not been involved closely with you would believe Your family would be shocked at how mean you actually are to your partners, your family who you often dragged into our conflicts. I long for the day when I can talk to you and not feel threatened that you are going to screw me over and make me feel horrible. I guess I still can’t believe that you were so mean to me-that you manufactured situations for the sole purpose that you could step on my emotions. After all, to the observer, the by stander- you are such a nice person, so gentle. Little do they know how much you hate yourself because of the way you have failed at everything. Little do they know how you love to create situations so that you can feel powerful over others simply because you have made them feel badly. The worst thing about yesterday is that you probably felt good because I was feeling uncomfortable. It made me mad that you still had that power over me. It made me mad that you could care less that you had hurt me over and over and over again for so many years. When people say ” You creep me out>” that is exactly how I feel about you. The thing I learned about you, during the time I was with you that it is not safe to be honest around you. The things I learned about you during the 17 years I was with you are that you will smile as soon as your partner starts to feel badly. I refuse to be involved in that situation anymore. I refuse to be your fodder any more. I refuse to participate in your subtle manipulations. When I talked to you the last time on the phone, I could tell that you were saying my name loudly just so your partner would know that you were talking to me on the phone. I could tell that my very existence in being your “friend” was to be used against your current girlfriend. I could tell that you feel perfectly ok with saying things to people simply to get them involved with you so you could use it against your current partner. I refuse to be involved in that anymore. Your family would never believe that . It is way to embarrassing to be treated the way you treat those closest to you. It is way to embarrassing to admit that you have been treated so casually by someone who once one really tried to love. Loving you is a very dangerous situation. When you notice someone trying to love you, your claws come out. You are happy to rip at a heart. You are happy to see blood. You are happy to see pain in someone’s face. It is your best skill- the subtle manipulation, the gas lighting- the way you love to shift change. The way you love to make someone feel like she is crazy. It is good that you have someone now who has had electrodes implanted in her brain. She has to be very plain. She has to be careful. I refuse to get within your territory- I refuse to run the risk that you could use me to make her feel badly. I wish I could say you wouldn’t do that in your old age, but I have seen you do it over and over and over again. I don’t want to be part of your life anymore. One day I will have a conversation with you and I will feel completely ok. One day I will have a conversation with you and know that there is nothing there- there is only a flatness. I know that showing any emotion makes me a victim to you. I know that just being flat is the only way to be around you. I just hate that you still have a hold over me. I just hate that I have been dreading Thanksgiving for months. I just hate that I can’t see my own sons without having to remember all the mean things that you have done to me. Our children refuse to see you as a mean person. To our children, I am the one who has a problem. That is because you are so so subtle. So this is a tribute to the long line of women who hate you. So this is a tribute to the conversations I have had with your ex’s who feel about you, just the way I do. So this is a tribute to the women who have seen your soul and it was not a pretty sight. So this is a tribute to me, who refuses to be part of your little game anymore. My victory will be the day i feel safe about talking to you. My victory was not yesterday. My victory will be someday in the future when i can have a conversation with you and i won’t feel threatened by you. My victory will be the day when I can be in the same room with you and to have a creepy feeling in my stomach that you are going to walk over and say something that is like a knife to my stomach. Yes it is true you are an emotional bully. Yes it is true that the one thing you are really really good at is emotionally manipulating women. yes it is true that most of your ex’s – since there are many- refuse to talk to you, refuse to have any contact with you and when given a moment, will explain how much they hate you. And you actually love that because to you, it means only that they want you. No we don’t want you dear________. We just have seen who you are and how little you care. Propping up your own ego is what you are all about. I cringe to think about what weird little projects you are dragging your current girlfriend into that all revolve around your own ego. When you told our son ” She is the richest person I have ever known>” I could see the picture- just like when we were first together and you were talking to your mom about her buying you some silk underwear. Oh my goodness, that is just very very strange. Or the first trip we went on together, when you were reading that book about someone having an affair with an older blind woman and laughing outloud- the weirdness, the bizarre things that your family would never believe. Remember when you would call your whole family to discuss arguments we had- stacking everyone against me, humiliating me- saying things in your skillful way to make you look like the higher person. That was always your stance- that you were the higher person. I pray to be purged of my distaste for you. I pray for a holy forgetfulness. I pray to forget all about who you are. I pray to just see you as a random person. I pray to one day care less that you are in the same room with me, but your track record of all the woman who hate you is a hard reminder that this day may never come.