Epic letter to XH - throwing it into the wind and letting it all go

[BuntCunting]

To XH,

I admit I am writing this email for selfish reasons. Yesterday you did something that after everything was the final straw. I had an epiphany as a result though. This will be the last time I will converse with you about anything other than contact arrangements for the girls. I don’t care if you read this in full, print it out and stick it on your fridge or if you delete it before reading a single word. I am doing this for me.

Let me explain. Last night you informed me you would be taking our girls on holiday to Disney Land Paris. I will admit I was gutted by this news. It was always my dream to take my children to Disney Land for the first time. But you already knew that, didn’t you. You already knew this because it’s something I talked about a lot. I was so desperate to take them that I even asked if we could take them together despite the fact that we were separated at that point. You remember me spending a few days researching it all, finding the best price etc. I remember. I remember because it was January 2014 and I’d just paid for Christmas 2013 and E’s 3rd birthday. I remember because I was on my arse financially having just moved out of our house and in to rental. I remember because you had promised to pay me back your half of Christmas with January’s rent. I was going to use that money to pay some off the Disney Land holiday I so desperately wanted to take my children on. But you never did pay me back. Not then and not in the three years since. So I never did get to book that dream holiday. I told myself that I would get out of debt (debt that I built up throughout our relationship) and I would save for as long as it took so that I could take them myself.

It was never your dream to do that with them, was it? I have an excellent memory XH, as you well know. Never, not once did you ever talk about taking them to Disney Land. I know you hate the French with a passion. You like lazy holidays in hot countries with swimming pools and a bar so you can get drunk. You barely even enjoy doing activities with the kids, you don’t even like theme parks. Disney Land is your idea of hell. But this isn’t the first time you’ve done this. Remember when you told me you wanted to take the children to Lapland last Christmas? I remember for the same reasons I remember all this. A holiday in a freezing cold country that centres on nothing but activities for the kids, that’s about as far away from a drunken pool holiday as you can get. And also coincidentally the only other place I was desperate to take my children one day. I begged you not to steal that dream. You know my idea of a good holiday is the polar opposite of yours. There are a million places in the world that have little Britain in the sun. Your kind of places. So why don’t you want to take your children there? Why has it been that the only places that you want to take them are the places that I am desperate to take them?

I’m not really asking. I already know the answer. I realised it last night, an epiphany if you will. Because as with so many of your purposes for living, this is to get back at me, to hurt me, to steal my dreams, to reap the rewards of my hard work. Because you hate me. I don’t fully understand why you hate me, but I know you do. But I confess to still sometimes wondering the reasons for this, like I wondered so often when we were still together. The many, many, many nights, angry, tearful, kick you in your stomach painful nights where I wondered why you treated me so badly when all I did was love you, care for you, stand by you, stay faithful to you, bear your children for you. But enough now. I am done caring about your reasons, done caring about your feelings, done trying to get along with you for our children’s sake. Because I know now it’s impossible to get along with someone who treats you like the enemy, whose sole purpose in life it to tear you down. Today I am taking back control. As of today you no longer exist to me. So take back your memories. Have them all. Keep them, they’re yours. I no longer have a use for them, no need to remind myself of all the shit you’ve put me through as a warning on how to deal with you. Because I won’t be dealing with you. Not after today.

[BuntCunting]

Have back that time when we were a very new couple and you kissed my friend J. Take back the fact that I gave you another chance anyway.

Take back that time I went to your cricket dinner and you left me alone, ill on the back of the coach so you could carry on drinking. That one never bothered me much anyway although the fact that you never bothered to check if I was ok and wouldn’t answer the phone to me for several days after and I was left wondering what I had done wrong, hurt a little bit more. Not now though, take it, it’s yours.

Take back the pain I felt when after you returned from your three week trip to Australia, you didn’t want to see me. I had missed you so much, I couldn’t wait to see you but you wanted to go drinking with your friends. Take back the panic attack I had the next day when I came down to see you, hungover and stinking in bed, and I found the messages from C that confirmed you had had sex the previous night. Fuck that hurt, but not anymore because that memory belongs to you now. Oh, and take back the additional bit of hurt when several years down the line, I found out that you had been seeing C for months before you went to Aus, and it wasn’t just a one night stand as you’d led me to believe. Take back the fact that you carried on seeing her for months and just as I was beginning to get over you, you wanted me back. Didn’t really want me, but didn’t want anyone else to have me either.

I’m sure you love reminiscing about the many women you slept with behind my back, but please, take back my memories from this too. Take back S, take back the other three times you slept with C, take back ST, take back K, take back CB, take back that women who was friends with S’s other woman in Fleetwood. I know there are more but I don’t know about them and I don’t care either. I hope these memories give you joy. I know they will since they were created on the back of my pain.

Take back the secret stag do. Take back the time you screamed in my face for buying microwave chips instead of oven chips. You know that’s all they had right? That I hadn’t done it to upset you? Well it’s your memory now. Take back all the times you stood me up, too many to count, too many to remember. Take back all the times I cooked for us, and waited patiently for you at your house but you couldn’t be bothered to come back from drinking. Take back your disloyalty. Take back your contempt. Take back every time we sex. It was shit anyway.

Take back the time you swindled my parents out off $5,000 after they’d already agreed to knock £30,000 off the asking price for the house. The house I grew up in, my childhood home, the place where we were meant to raise a family together. The place I walked away from without a penny because I thought it would help you to get on with me for the children. Take it, have it. It’s tainted now anyway.

[BuntCunting]

Take back when I found out I was pregnant with I and you were shagging a 16 year old who was so much more important that I had to go through that pregnancy on my own. Take back the fear and the extreme loneliness that came from carrying the baby by someone who couldn’t give a flying fuck about you. Take back the worry I felt when I started bleeding and thought I was miscarrying. Take back the fact that I went to that scan alone. Enjoy your memories from New Year’s Eve 2007, when you went to your brother’s house party and posed for photos with your 16 year old girlfriend. I’m happy to complete that set for you – I spent the night crying in bed because I knew that at the stroke of midnight you would be kissing someone else and I had to hold it all together for our unborn baby, worrying about how the fuck I was supposed to do that on my own. Take back every time you were with her whilst I was trapped by having to do the right thing by our unborn baby. Do you have any idea what it’s like to simultaneously love your unborn baby and resent it because you just want to drink yourself into oblivion and move on like the father has but you know you cant because you already lover her? Well now you do, because those memories are yours.

Take back the time you separately took me and K to view the same house. What would you have done if we’d both agreed to live there with you? I’ll leave you to consider that because this is now your memory. Take back the time when I was bleeding again and couldn’t get hold of you so came to your house after uni. I needed reassurance from the only other person who was meant to care but instead I came back to find you cuddling K on the sofa. You refused to let me in remember. I had to watch through the window. Never before in my life have I ever felt so abandoned and I was carrying your baby. You won’t know this but I went home and was violently sick from the shock. But have it, I don’t want that memory anymore.

Take back the time I had a scan early in the morning so needed you to take O to school before coming to the hospital, but you couldn’t come could you? Because you’d gone drinking the night before and got yourself arrested. You were locked in a cell while I had yet another appointment alone. Well, not completely alone, I had to take O with me because I couldn’t get him to school in time and be there for the scan. Take back the utter shame and humiliation I felt when a police officer called me to find out how the scan had gone so you could know if everything was ok. Take back all the times when I couldn’t find you and you had your phone switched off. How ill I made myself trying to prove what I knew deep down, that you were seeing K. I just wanted you to tell me. I just needed to know for sure so I could move on. But you couldn’t even show me even the smallest bit of decency. Well have it, its yours. Take back the time when on my due date, 31st July 2008, I started having pains and thought it was the beginning of labour. I tried calling you to tell you but you wouldn’t answer your phone. I must have called 20 times before K answered then hung up. Remember how you tried to tell me it was the sound of the TV? I remember pretending to believe you because at 40 weeks pregnant, I couldn’t cope with the fact that you were still shagging her behind my back. Enjoy that memory, it’s yours.

[BuntCunting]

Remember how you left me in my hospital bed having just given birth to our daughter and you went straight to her? Remember how in the months after you were barely there and I had to raise our daughter practically alone? Remember how you found it so hard. I bet it seemed hard in comparison to shagging your 17 year old girlfriend. Unfortunately, I also remember how hard it was but I had no alternative. Well congratulations, those memories are now yours. Remember that photo you posed for on New Years Eve with K? Remember when K posted it on Facebook for everyone to see? I do because I had just had a baby three days before and I had to endure the shame and embarrassment of everyone talking about it behind my back when it was supposed to be the happiest days of my life? You won’t remember this but I had to take antidepressants to cope with that. Your memories now though. And remember how after all of that, she dumped you and I took you back to give us a chance at being a family. I really really want to forget that so have that one too.

Take back the time when you lost your job and I supported you with the little money I had. All the times I bought you cigarettes on my credit card. The time I sent you on a night out with my debit card because I didn’t want you to miss out. Remember how you paid me back? By coming home late. Remember how I supported you through a career change? Remember how I started to look for work to support us even though I had a very young baby that I wanted to stay home with. Remember all those times I tried to help you get out of debt? Remember how shit with money you were. Still are.

Remember the time I was pregnant with E, I was really ill with morning sickness. And the time I got a bad migraine? You had a couple of days work at your cousins house so wouldn’t come and help look after I even though I was too ill. Remember coming back after work, me lying ill on the sofa while I played in a mess of toys? Remember taking a photo and saying ‘this one is for the judge’?

Remember all the times I made an effort with your back stabbing family because I loved you? Remember how well I got on with H even though she had invited you and your other woman to her house behind my back? Remember how I let that one go? Remember all the shit I took off R, remember all the times I bit my tongue in the face of her snidey little backstabbing comments? Remember how I took it and took it and took it until her nasty bitter fat arse couldn’t handle the jealousy of our lovely wedding and I finally snapped and called her out on her shit? Remember how I visited your mother while she smoked cigarettes with my baby on her knee? Remember how I bit my tongue then too? Take all of them.

Remember how much effort I put into planning our wedding? Remember the time I found your sexual messages to CB on Facebook where you were trying to meet up with her? I wanted to cancel our wedding then too but I still loved you despite everything and just wanted us to be a proper family. Remember when C rang me three months after our wedding and told me she’d slept with you the night before and had been for the previous year?

Remember how you would be on my case every day about the ‘state’ of the house even though I was a stay at home mum meant to be caring for our two very young children? Remember how no matter how hard I tried, it was never good enough for you. Remember the time when you dumped an 8 month old screaming E in her high chair and barked at me to clean the house? Remember how you wouldn’t get the washing machine repaired or buy a new one so I had to drag two small children and a weeks worth of bagged up washing to my mum’s house for three months so we could have clean clothes? Remember how you worked away all week and I was left on my own to raise our children? Remember that you would come home at the weekends and blow your earnings on going out and getting drunk? Remember how much you enjoyed your social life whilst mine revolved around the children. Even then you accused me of drinking coffee with my friend’s all day, made out like it was easy to look after everyone and everything. But remember how you couldn’t do it, how you refused to help because you were earning the money? Remember how the only time I could go out on an evening was if my mum looked after our babies? Remember shouting at me for spending too much on the shopping every week despite refusing to do it yourself. You would get cross if I bought ‘unnecessary’ things like yoghurts for the children. Remember how I did everything with the children, took them out, played with them, sang to them, bathed them, cared for them, while you couldn’t really handle doing all this for them? Do you realise you never had our small children alone for more than a few hours at a time? How despite this, you thought you could do it better? I remember you apologising a few weeks after we split because for the first time you realised how hard it was for me in that situation. Keep these memories and keep your apologies. They mean nothing to me now.

Remember how when I got a part time job you made me pay for all the childcare which left me with nothing? How I paid for everything, all our clothes, the gas meter with your astronomical debt which I was also paying back. Remember how you lost you company car and I was paying everything for mine – loan payment, fuel, insurance, tax, but you would demand to drive it anyway? Remember the time you wanted to take my car but I said no because I needed it for work and you wrestled me to the ground to take my keys off me? Remember how you threw me out of the door with no shoes on and I hit the stone steps outside? And how you wouldn’t let me back in?

Remember every tear I shed, every cross word, every lie, every selfish action, every affair, everything shitty thing you have ever done to me and I have not by a long stretch detailed everything here. Have it all, take it, its yours. As I said, I have no use for these memories because you don’t exist to me anymore.

[BuntCunting]

I sometimes think back to all this and wonder why I stayed with you, why I put up with it all for so long. Why I married you in spite of everything. Most women say they don’t think they could cope financially without their husband or worry about how they’ll cope being a single parent. None of these things fazed me because I was already so used to handling things on my own, I was already providing financially for my children, and I was doing it well. Not like I had a choice really. So what I keep coming back to is that I was scared of how things would be if we split up. So many times I had tried to leave but you would always drag me back with false promises. You would never let me move on. I was worried about how you would cope with the children on your own, Worried about how your inability to co parent our children along side me would impact them. I love them so much I was willing to sacrifice my happiness to keep them in a family with their father there. I though I could manage your temper. But after C, I realised how little you really did give a shit about me, about us, about our family and I wanted better for my children. I wanted to give them the opportunity to see their mum happy, to know that there are relationships which are healthy and happy and not abusive. My worst fear is that they will get with someone like you and have to endure even a tenth of what I’ve put up with from you. I tried so hard in the early days of our split. I knew how much your money and your house meant to you so I walked away from it all with nothing in the hope that you would get along with me for the children’s benefit. I even processed our divorce on the basis of my infidelity because you wanted to save face and tell the world that our marriage failed because of me. I can laugh now at how ludicrous that is, but I did it because I wanted us to get along for the children.

But after last night, I am officially removing the responsibility to manage your hostility against me and your game playing. I no longer want to take on the burden of making sure you do the right thing. If you want to steal my dream to take the kids to Disney Land then go ahead. See, what I’ve realised is that you’re not really taking anything. Yes, you will be in Disney Land \Paris with my children but it won’t mean the same to you as it would have meant to me. Your holiday will be tainted by your need for revenge. In fact, your whole relationship with the children will be tainted with your anger and hostility against me. When they look back on their childhood, I know they are going to remember who was there with them when they were sick, who broke their back taking them to many and varied activities, organised and paid for them, who sacrificed their career to work a part time job around them and their school, who kept a roof over their heads, who did the half hour school run, sometimes four times a day, because we were forced to move so far from their school, who bought all their Christmas presents, who sat up until 2am wrapping, who bought all their birthday presents, who organised all their birthday parties and who paid for them, who was there at every school play, at every parents evening, at every dentist and doctors appointment, who took them on cheap holidays because that’s all she could afford but they were fun because it was all about them, about their happy home that yes, may be a bit messy but is filled with toys and love and fun. These are my memories and mine alone because I earned them. You won’t ever get back all that time we spent just the three of us, me, I and E, you will never know the bond I have with the baby that kept me going through your affairs.


I realised something recently. I am the happiest I’ve ever been. No, I don’t have a lot of money, no I don’t live in a beautiful house like you do, yes I am exhausted trying to balance all our lives whilst I’m suffering with Hypothyroidism, but I have something that you never will. I have the ability to love without selfishness. I have absolutely no idea why you hate M so much because besides the fact that you have never met him, he has done nothing to you. But he makes me so incredibly happy. It’s sad that you will never experience a relationship where you get each other so totally that you complete each other’s sentences, where you have your own language, where you make each other laugh until it hurts every single day, where you trust them so wholly, so totally that it makes you feel invincible by their side, where you connect on every level, where the world feels full of possibility because it’s so much better experiencing life with them. Where they build you up and support you in everything you do. Where you can’t wait to grow old together because you know you will have amassed decades of happy memories. Where you are so secure within their love that it helps you grow as a person. Where they value your relationship as much as you do. Do you know we have never argued? Not once. He has never let me down. Not once. He has never hurt me. Not once. And it proves to me that I pointlessly tried to carry us both through 12 years of your shit because it was never about me. I tried so hard to please you, live up to your impossible expectations. But I could have been anyone. It was never about me, it was about your self esteem, your power struggle, your sense of entitlement. But here I quit. Find someone else to take out your inadequacies on, to crush in your attempt to feel better about yourself. You are no longer my concern.

Even so, there is always something lurking in the background threatening to pull me back from the new life I’ve created for myself. And that’s you with your toxic attitude, with your never ending criticisms, with your one-upmanship, with your games, with your arguments, with your jealousy, with your hatred. But not after today. You do not get to ruin this for me. You do not even exist to me.

So this is it, everything I have ever wanted to and will say to you ever again.

Good bye.

[clam]

Wow! Don't know what to say except what a dreadful time you've had with a complete bastard.

Here are some for you. And a hug!

[MrsH14]

After reading this I'm so pleased you managed to find someone who by the sounds of things loves you the way you deserve to be loved.

[gruffaloshmuffalo]

[MayhemandMadness]

Life will only get better for you now and I wish you the very best for your wonderful future

[shoeaddict83]

wow....i dont even know where to being with the s**t you have been through OP. All i can say is its wonderful you have finally found your happily ever after and someone who totally loves you for you, not this prick who treated you so so badly.
I hope getting it all out has helped and you can leave it in the past and move on with your new partner

[scarletthollie5]

Well done - dumping it all back where it belongs. I wish you a happy life you deserve it

[BuntCunting]

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read that extremely long post and for taking the time to reply. I didn't expect anyone to reply so thank you.

The reason I decided to send that to my XH was because yet again he managed to put me in a bad mood when I had been enjoying the evening with DP. But of course it was exactly what he wanted. So enough is enough.

My current relationship indeed feels like the fairytale after the horror story. DP's reaction after I had the phone call last night from XH was to offer to book a trip to Disney Land and he would put it on his credit card. Of course I couldn't accept that from him but just offering to do that for me meant so much. he is so great and I know would do anything to make me happy, as I do for him.

If anyone happens to come across this thread who is in a bad relationship and is worried they will regret leaving, just do it. Get out however you can. I was frozen into inaction because of what turned out to be unfounded fears. Truly my only regret was not leaving sooner. I didn't believe decent men existed but I now know that isn't true at all.

[DaemonPantalaemon]

Did you really send all that to him???? Because no one reads emails that long, even people who love you. Someone who hates you simply won't care enough to read it. When someone does nothing to get a rise, the trick is not to show that you are rising!!!

[SymphonyofShadows]

It doesn't matter as long as OP found it cathartic

[petalsandstars]

He's a shit. Let him stay that way and don't give a crap about him anymore.

[silverfoxofwarwick1952]

Shining example to all of us Bunt
Print and keep your posts. They are amazing.
Your children have a great mum.

[RandomMess]

I am so glad you are free of him and I am so glad that you are no longer going to let him taint your life.

Your DC will see him for what he is, he may have taken them places etc. but you will be the one they remember as enjoying spending time with them - the wool will not be pulled over their eyes

[abbsismyhero]

save up beg borrow steal the money to take them to disney world florida it beats the pants off paris apparently

but im a petty person who delights in taking her kids out every half term and every six week holiday because my ex was the fucking fun police and wouldn't let me today my kids remarked we are going to need more space for our group photos from going places these would not be allowed with my ex (they are when you go around an attraction and they offer to take pictures for you and photoshop you in different backgrounds the kids love them we were riding on a chocolate bar yesterday)

[QuiteLikely5]

You poor woman, I do not know how you withstood all of that behaviour.

Thank god you got out of it though and I agree with a PP who mentioned Florida

[Kirk123]

Fantastic email , I am delighted you are taking back your life and control , I wish you the very best life can bring you , take care of you now you are a survivor , use all your energy on you now , finding your authetic self ❤️❤️

[sapphirestars]

I don't often post but I logged in to say that I read most of that with my mouth open! What a despicable piece of crap! Well done for taking your life back. He will be forever miserable because he can never make hinself happy or anyone else. He simply can't or doesn't have the ability. That is why he hates your oh. Because he is up there with you in your shining ivory tower and he is trying to chip away at the bottom of it by throwing things in like the disney trip. He can't bear to see that you are happy with someone else and your attention isn't on him. Xxxx have a happy life op and don't look back. Xx

[Darnley]

WOW. just that.

[beelover]

[bibbitybobbityyhat]

I HAVE to ask this. Why did you marry him?

[bendybrickpumpkinpatch]

DaemonPantalaemon does it matter ? What a shitty comment !!!

Why don't you piss on her parade some more, seems like that's exactly what OP needs....NOT !