An Open Letter to My Narcissist (Ex) Husband
For the last five years, you’ve been my best friend and my worst enemy. You’ve loved me and hurt me in ways that I never thought possible. You tore me apart, shredded what little sense of self I had, leaving me in the ruins to figure out who I was. And as I went through the long and painful process of building myself back up, you lost control. And as you lost control, you fought harder to try to get it back. But turns out I was stronger than you.
I grew cold. I grew hard. I became the bitch you said I was. I distanced myself. I made you move out of our room. I told you I wanted a divorce. I told you to move on. And you did. Frequently.
But you kept coming back.
And I kept letting you.
And now you’re gone again. And I wonder, is this the time that it really sticks? Will you stay gone long enough for the ache of missing you to fade? Will you stay gone long enough that when you come back, I have the strength to tell you to fuck off for good? I hope so. I need you to stay gone long enough. I need to move on with my life.
That coldness, that meanness, that bitchiness… it was a face. A face I needed to wear to make you go away. Because I know you loved me. I loved you. I still love you. I will always love you. The ferocity of my love for you frightens me most in these times when you’re gone, because I know that my magic is in my emotions, and if I don’t control this, it will draw you back in.
And so I am enforcing no contact. I’ve blocked your phone number in my phone. I’ve blocked you on Facebook and Instagram. And if you try to contact me any other way, I’ll block you that way.
Because I need my freedom. For my sanity, I need my freedom from you.
And I hurt, because I know the only reason you’re going is because I can’t be your victim anymore, and you’ve found a new one.
I have to harden my heart against her. I have to make her the bitch that is taking you away from me, or I will feel sorry for her. I will feel pity for her. And my magic will take that pity and it will put a wedge between you and her, and will draw you back to me.
I know this, because this is what happened before, last year, when you met someone and moved in with her the day after meeting her. I felt sorry for her, because I knew what you were going to put her through. And I knew that through your confrontations with me, you’d learned how to be a better narcissist. You had to. I kept seeing through your bullshit, I kept challenging you, I kept calling you out on it. I thought I was making you a better person, at first, but it didn’t take long to realize I was making you a subtler abuser.
And so now, you are moving in with another woman. And though I know you will wreck her the way you wrecked me, and you will hurt in ways she never imagined possible, I cannot feel sorry for her, because that will just pull you back to me, needing me to rescue you from the inevitable collapse that will happen when she discovers the real you. Because I know she hasn’t met the real you. The rage inside, the monster within.
What I can do is hold both of you in loving kindness. What I can do is hold both of you in peace. What I can do is know that our journey together is over, and your journey with her begins. It is not my place to judge where it is going. It is not my place to hold space for you to come back to, as I have done so many times before.
There is no longer space for you here. You are no longer welcome here. I will always and forever love you. I will never love another. I knew that before I even met you that I only had one more love in me, and you were it. I dreamed of you before you came to me. Our marriage was in the cards. I remember the reading clearly, two days after we started dating. You asked for a reading, and it showed clearly to me that you’d be married within six months. I swore it wouldn’t be me, I didn’t want to get married. But it was me. And so for five years, I’ve been your supply of the energy that has sustained your ego.
And now I no longer am.
Now it is time to heal.
Before, when you’d leave, you always had a reason to come back. You always needed something here. And now there is nothing here for you. That has been assured. You have no reason to come back.
I love you, but I never want to see you again.
