The Letter I Never Wanted to Send
And the day my second marriage died
Dear Second Husband,
It’s May of 2020 with a chill in the air as I sit here on the porch before sunrise. I’ve been waking up early and trying to find the emotional and physical space away from everyone to write these words. I don’t know where I’m headed, but I know I have too much to say and that if I tried to even sit in the same room with you with these thoughts in my head, that I would explode on the spot. Finding this voice is difficult for me and I hope you can respect the time it will take before I muster enough courage to finally send this to you. And I’m sorry for the coldness of my heart between that day and now because I’m sure it’ll have been hard all those nights going to bed angry and confused at the hands of my internal turmoil. I feel so much regret. I hope you can forgive me.
I need to draw some new boundaries for what I want more of and less of in my life. I happen to want more of feeling loved-supported-cherished, and nurtured, and happy, and overflowing, over feeling small, insignificant, and worthless.
When we’re together, I feel angry, hopeless, depressed, small, taken advantage of, objectified, useless, inadequate, unappreciated, lesser-than, competitive, self-conscious, on edge, and alone.
I don’t want to feel this way anymore; thus, the logical parts of my brain tell me this equation resolves with us not being together, simply as we’re mismatched. The only other option is that I am defective, and that narrative has taken up too much space in my life for too long. One that I feel you’ve found-out and specifically taken advantage of on many occasions, but this isn’t a note of specifics, just my feelings.
Please don’t assume that I may be blinded by anger because I believe I am actively releasing it. This letter to you is one form of emotion that I am both trying to extract from myself and practice for myself.
I want you to feel me releasing you from my expectations and I release myself from the guilt of staying in a relationship that has stifled my authentic self and who I am in my heart. So, I release you and I release myself.
Specifically releasing the individual and compartmentalized animosity I am harboring and have accumulated over the past 9 years will take years of repair, none of which I expect anyone but myself to participate in.
I don’t know where I want to start, but I have to start somewhere, so I’ll start at the beginning.
When we met, lots of things aligned, our combined forces dominated, you helped level my head and I helped to open yours; and as I sacrificed my needs for others and I saw opportunities for success, and I fell in love with feeling like I was wanted, like I was accepted, and I fell in love with you for who you were all while I was hiding my true self because my entire life I’ve been the master of disguise, chameleon extraordinaire — and I did all of the things that I’ve learned over the years of not being accepted or of not feeling like I belonged anywhere, to then ensure I’d be accepted by you and subsequently your family and your friends. And so it was. And here we are.
Tearing down the walls of who I thought I had to be has torn down the relationships I’ve made while living this unauthentic life. You know, all those people you say I’ve cut-out for good? Just because I can end a relationship (albeit immaturely), I’ve also found my way back to people who draw me in with their longing to heal my heart, to serve me compassion and understanding as I continue to grow. These people see me, they feel what I feel, and they calm my suffering spirit. And I wish I felt these things from you.
Maybe my autistic way of navigating the world has put me out of touch with understanding how people may respond to my authentic self and this has shaped my behavior to hide away until I feel safe — but, what happens is, I’m not good enough, so I accept whatever gives me enough validation is good enough until it’s not anymore because it’s left me starved. You are a good man, and you are “good enough” so all those times I said that you were a piece of shit, I was hurting you because I was in pain and that was wrong, and I’m sorry. I never want to ever try to control someone’s emotions by belittling them and making them small. I know this in my heart and am really trying to work on expressing this more in how I am… and I’ve found this to be extremely difficult which is totally allowed but also, at the same time, a major inconvenience to my growth and emotional development. Cognitively, I know this.
Revealing that vulnerable spot, that flesh without scales on the underbelly of my thorny exterior, opening it up as I’m terrified of the injury I know I’m allowing in the future. You know, when my deepest thoughts and feelings are eventually weaponized and used to tear me down off the inverted pyramid I’ve constructed of affirmations and mantras. I can’t ascend into my enlightenment and true purpose without a strong foundation of self-acceptance, love, and compassion — and I’ve been looking for these things to be fulfilled by you, and this was misplaced, and so, I release you.
Because of what I have come to learn about my proper functioning in relationship with a partner, I need to be very clear with what my needs are now, and because I hated myself when we met — naturally, I taught you how to treat me by way of how I’ve always treated myself… and that’s not your fault, and it also doesn’t mean I’m not mad about it. I feel that in many ways you should have known better. I want to hold you accountable. You should have cared for me more to not allow yourself to take full advantage of my willingness to please. Ridiculous, I know! And, I know that my internal unrest has been at the root of many of our difficulties and I can’t hold you to a higher standard than I hold myself and so I must start being honest.
I have allowed myself to be repeatedly wounded by someone I thought loved me because I’ve been trying to prove something. Prove something to someone I feel I’ve never been good enough for. Not because I’m not enough, but actually, because I’m too much of enough. Too much for any one person.
I have put you down and held you, hostage. I’ve painted the picture of victim without blame when my spirit has been so hateful too. And I think I’ve been doing this forever. I think I have been an awful person for a really long time, and I hope since that day, that I’ve been even the smallest bit better. I think since the day that I couldn’t imagine breathing another breath, that it’s been two steps forward for every one step back, and not the other way around.
I may feel the progress, but I still never feel seen, so I guess I wouldn’t know one way or another.
The consistency and stability of being in that “safe place” shined a light onto glaring deficits in my ability to care for myself. My eating disorder on full display, my contempt for authority seething under the surface, feeling more trapped than I ever have and simultaneously free from the delusions that bound me before. All of those things, and the stark realization that the home I have created, that we have created together (but separately), isn’t built on love and trust, but rather sacrifice and survival. Even being completely necessary at the time, it’s paved the way for deep hurts that need cleaning and airing out if we even want to think about our future together and what kind of home we want for our children. And until we’ve made progress in the healing, our home life will feel heavy and hurtful and hard. The only place we have to seek respite is an unanchored ship in a sea of storms unknown. The best lesson I’ve learned coming home from being in that “safe place” after I truly and wholeheartedly wanted to end my life that day, was that the home I have created, the only place I have to seek respite is not a safe place. It’s especially not a safe place for my wounded inner child that is so desperately trying to cling to crumbs of love and affection. This isn’t a home built in love. This is a home built out of survival and grit — and it’s not serving a single one of us.
My digs, those put-downs, my spews of anger and hostility, come from years of feeling unable to please anyone around me. I project unrealistic standards and expectations to compensate for the pain I’m feeling inside for knowing that anything I’m getting in return is all in vain, it’s all conditional. I don’t want to be that person anymore, so I won’t. Each day instead, I’ll make the conscious decision to try. We are allowed expectations in our relationships, and it’s my responsibility to communicate mine. It’s not okay for us to communicate disrespectfully and I’ve committed to myself that I’ll continue to work on this. Will you work on this with me?
I deserve the world. And, so do you. The obvious next step for me is maybe not the obvious next step for you, because we seem to be speaking to each other on different frequencies lately, but I need to remind myself… I am allowed. My emotions are allowed. My irrational thinking is allowed, my pain is allowed, my overreactions are allowed, and all these parts deserve tolerance and compassion and I deserve a God-damned fucking cheerleader because everyone does.
I deserve, not only to be noticed in even my slightest of changes, I deserve to be accepted fiercely, loved unconditionally, held higher by someone who will fight for me… and so do you. And I hope that happens one day, for each of us. Whether it’s me and you in this relationship far into the future, or amidst any of the plethora of possibilities that lie ahead.
I want to believe that I have stood by your side and supported you through 100% of everything you have wanted out of this life, all of the difficulties, all of the dramas and traumas, and everything we’ve built together. I’d like to believe, but I know deep down that it’s likely not the case. I’d like to feel and believe that I have had the same done for me, someone standing by my side, walking the same path I’m on, supporting me as I’m stumbling. And I don’t.
This loss of emotional connection between us hurts me, wounds me, enough to let the belief system of never-worthiness back in; to body-check me into despair. Tossing the anvil of emotional me, down a special spiral staircase of crash-bang-boom. Where I’ll settle for a while once again.
I feel to the deepest fiber of my being that I have never once had another human being in my life lookout for me without ulterior motives.
This is my mother-wound, and as much as I’d like to put all the ownness on you, I can’t because it matter-of-factly isn’t yours. It burns like hell and all I want to do is stop the pain. All I’ve been trying to do is stop the pain of knowing that the simple fact that I was born, was a show and tell for status and social symbolism icing on the cake for the wounded inner-children all-growed-up to be physically, mentally, and emotionally abusive narcissistic parents. This is no one’s burden but mine and the only thing I can continue to do is heal myself while healing the hurt I have caused as a direct result of this pain.
Sometimes it’s so confusing. Remembering or feeling as if I had only ever been part of creating a family of fallacy; I was there to paint a picture, to serve a purpose and if I didn’t fit the mold or play the part I was unloved and therefore unlovable. It was in these moments I learned to unlove myself a little bit more, why I felt I needed to disrupt and erupt basically-constantly. But I digress and the wholeness of myself wants nothing more than to have this connection, this trust with someone. An anchor through stormy seas.
And now, I feel untethered to anything and every lifeline has gone slack — blowing in the wind, screaming ‘ you have nothing ’ and I’m scared.
The simple realization that I have to fill this hole myself invites fear. Fear that I will never have a partner in my life who wants only the best for me, or… let’s get crazy, more for me than they want for themselves. If I am so freely willing to die for someone close to my heart, why can’t I have that reciprocated? Is that the definition of codependency, or does that just make me human? Surprise, I don’t have the answer.
I need this connection and intimacy. I crave it, you crave it, we all do. I know to have this connection makes me a better version of me because when I have it the joy overflows and my heart feels a little bit warmer, a little bit safer, a little more held and free.
I want someone to believe in me because I believe in me and support me in the ways that I don’t even know that I need — even if I don’t understand it. I want to trust that I can start to be myself in this world and someones got my back. I can admit that I don’t know what that looks like because I’ve literally lived in perpetual fear for my whole life. I haven’t the luxury of seeing or feeling the safety net I have so desperately been trying in vain to build for myself, and for the children I’ve chosen to bring to this Earth.
I struggle with trust because I don’t think I ever learned what it is/was/could be. I am reparenting and making space for the work needed to mature this very small part of my psyche. I see it now, but I’ve been actively searching for acceptance without even being able to accept myself (again) — and this is not your fault, and it doesn’t mean I’m not upset about it.
I am thinking more and more that our boundaries for trust and compassion and caring have been violated for so long in our marriage and that we don’t really understand what these things mean to us anymore. We both need to stand up for ourselves, outside of any delusions or gaslighting that we’ve experienced over time. It hurts, even more, to be grieving something the other person can’t even see. Some days I wish we met far into the future because maybe we’d both be more mature or understanding of our responsibilities to ourselves, our children, and to each other. And then I think, if we met today — we’d be on opposite sides of some proverbial fence and it wouldn’t make it past the “first-date-pie-with-cheese.”
We’ve accomplished extraordinary things despite carrying more weight than any average person or partnership could bear and that’s enough for me to be satisfied — whatever the outcome is.
I’m at a crossroads.
What’s in front of me is a complete-eyes-wide-open turning point… like, “cut, stop the tape, reset the stage, because the last 9 years were dress rehearsal” type of fresh-start. I don’t want ultimatums, yet I do have realizations born from my new reality. I need to maintain my new boundaries of self-love, compassion, and respect because it is the only thing I can do to live as my truest self in contrast to a world that rejects the experiences that have shaped my cognition. I will always be learning, still. And in the absence of the affection I crave so tenaciously, I remember the days in which I shared with you my heart. Preparing for a day when I might have to think on it earnestly. For me, there is no other way forward and I hope for you, there isn’t either.
We both deserve the world. We both deserve that love story. We both deserve the families we’ve only always ever wanted.
We can try and if it works, great. We can try and if it doesn’t, then we know.
I’m willing if you’re willing.
With love,
Your First Wife
