Dear Dolores (a.k.a — “Lady of Sorrows”),
I thought it was about time we had a heart-to-heart about your future and my past.
Towards the end of our marriage, your boyfriend masturbated in bed next to me while I slept. He told me about it some days later, and after feeling confused about what the hell just happened, I finally realized how upset and disrespected I felt. So, I kindly expressed to him that I wouldn’t have appreciated being woken up by him jacking off next to me — and not to do it again.
Who does that?
A disordered guy who wants to get a reaction out of his soon-to-be ex-wife — that’s who.
When I asserted myself (and politely asked that he take care of himself anywhere but next to me), his solution was to kick me out of our master bedroom so he could rub one out.
***
I do not doubt that you’re sweet, kind, empathetic, and probably a fireball in bed. You’d have to be — or else he wouldn’t have picked you. In a sick sort of way — you guys make sense. But you don’t know this guy. The mask he wears with you is the guy I thought I was marrying fifteen years ago — and nothing like the person I divorced today.
***
One night, after he saw I was catching on to his blatant disrespect and wasn’t getting his way anymore, he told me he needed some time to decompress after work before heading home.
I didn’t think anything of it.
Come to find out; my ex-husband had stopped off at a long-time family-friends house to ask him if I was fucking him behind his back (and in front of our kids, mind you, whom I was home with all day.)
I didn’t have time to cheat. And I never would have been so selfish.
Yes, I sucked the stripper’s dick fifteen years ago. I made a horrendous mistake, and nothing like that ever happened again. I was beyond remorseful. Two kids and an almost fifteen-year marriage later, he had many affairs, zero empathy, became increasingly abusive, and did god-knows-what behind my back while I was home with the kids all day.
I am not perfect — but I assure you there isn’t an evil bone in my body.
***
When I cried mercy and told him I thought separating was a good idea — he raged. I genuinely gave him a get-out-of-jail-free card so he could figure out if dating his coworkers and seeing where things went ‘romantically’ (his words, not mine) was the answer to his unhappiness, and he threw it back in my face. He stood between me and the closed bedroom door, so I couldn’t leave until I told him who I was having an affair with.
Yeah, that happened.
Still, I loved that man; your now boyfriend. I tried to fix us, him, myself — anyone and anything he blamed his behavior on so everything (including our marriage) would improve.
He didn’t. And things only got worse, as you know, even after a year of all sorts of counseling. I found out later that he stopped seeing his therapist individually after a few sessions because she didn’t support his “open marriage” idea.
***
Final thoughts: I’m assuming you’re not married anymore either. From what I did hear about you when you and my ex-husband were “friends,” you were also in a long-term marriage that was quite volatile and abusive.
I’m here to tell you that you are repeating the same patterns.
Please stop. And save yourself.
I understand if you don’t trust me or want to hear what I have to say. After all, to you, my ex-husband seems like the unlucky victim in a Black Widow’s web of cruelty, neglect, and deceit.
I get it.
I hope you can love my ex-husband as much as I did —better yet, I hope you can love him the way he needs to be loved because I couldn’t do it anymore — not without my detriment. When the time comes (and it will), I hope you choose to love yourself more than I did while I was married to him.
In closing, I am everything you think I am. I can’t fight it; what you think of me is out of my control. But please, I beg of you, please be good to my kids. Liam is allergic to Amoxicillin. And Luna’s eustachian tubes are abnormally narrow — so if she’s running a high temperature, nine-and-a-half times out of ten, she has an ear infection.
Peace and Love,
D
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This post was previously published on Medium.
***
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