A letter to my ex-husband.

Dear D,

I realize you probably will never read this letter but I feel compelled to write it.  I have learned after four years of writing “divorce journals” that just the writing is cathartic.  Our four-year “anniversary” is coming up on December 29.  That date will mark four years since the day you told me you wanted a divorce–“a day that will live in infamy” as FDR said about the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  At least it is for me.  Time is working its miracle of healing and I’m getting emotionally healthy again.  In fact, I think I can honestly say that I am reasonably healthy these days.  Most family and friends are noticing a marked change for the better in my overall well-being.  But as the date approaches I start to relive, on some level, the “bomb” you dropped on our marriage.  Forgive the metaphor, but it felt like a bomb to me then and it still does.  I don’t think I want to forget how it felt that night and the many long nights that followed.  I need to remember in order to remind myself how much better off I am without you.  And I don’t mean any malice when I say that.  I think it’s a truth I have come to understand after much soul-searching.  Should I thank you for dumping me?  Maybe.  But I wish someone had given you lessons on an appropriate way to go about divorcing someone after 30 years of marriage.  No one did, obviously.  And that’s a rather dramatic understatement.

I remember a sermon Rob preached once about forgiveness.  He said it would be so much easier to forgive those who have hurt us if they would only apologize and own up to what they’ve done.  He says that almost never happens.  And in this case it certainly hasn’t.  I have stopped trying to figure out why you treated me the way you did.  But I can’t forget the pain of being your wife one day and the next (literally) having no connection to you at all.  As if I didn’t exist all of a sudden.  I won’t dwell on this because it still makes me cry and I’m sick of crying.  You’re no longer worth it to me.  (Again, no malice.)  Still, though, I want you to know that I forgive you.  And I don’t hate you.

I wish you all the good that you desire from your new life.  And good health and wealth (so you can pay me what you owe me).  After such a long history as ours, how could I wish you any less.

Always, Pat

Advertisement