Today has been more constant persuasion and prolonging the agony - this time via text as I was in the office all day. I had grey rocked last night as other PPs had advised. He asked last night if I would give him a hug, I declined because it just felt super weird and I didn’t want him to try to give me some awkward kiss. One of his texts below which makes me feel terribly guilty and sad for him but I have also copied my reply which went unanswered (I expect because he was crying). I feel like such a horrible person as I genuinely don’t think he ever thought I’d leave, but likewise I don’t want any of it back and have such clarity of thought that I’m just constantly telling myself to keep going. He knows the kids are my weak point so he knows that’ll tug on my heart strings!
Anyway, have taken emergency annual leave and tomorrow is day no 1 of 2 doing car loads of stuff across ahead of the removals van on Monday. A big week! 😭
His text:
Please [name], please. I am so sorry for my faults, but please we can make it work, for the kids and for us. This is so important. Please please can you reconsider this decision. My heart is split in two. I just want our family to continue as a unit. I will do whatever you need for this family of five to continue, it is the only thing in this world that means anything to me.
My reply:
You’ve promised me so many times in the past that things would change. I’ve had solicitors’ letters drafted on 4x separate occasions, and each time nothing happened and you just ignored it all (I have paid thousands in fees across 2 solicitors, one for the divorce letters and one for the post nup). This hasn’t been going on for months, it has been years. I have felt constantly stonewalled, despite trying again and again to explain to you what it was doing to me. I think, perhaps, you always assumed that ultimately I would never actually leave, and so nothing ever really had to change.
I cannot begin to explain the impact that has had on me, although I have tried so many times. The situation with Mum and Dad and the inheritance became another enormous source of stress. They aren’t getting any younger, and the continued lack of engagement was taking a real toll on them too. I told you about the meetings I was having with their advisers and even showed you photos of my outlook calendar because I was desperately trying to make you understand how serious things had become, but still nothing changed. You walked around calling it all “craziness”.
Telling me that the kids would only end up “spoilt and entitled like [me]” when I said I was going to start putting money into a JISA for them will always stay with me. So has the way you have been with Mum- I find that incredibly difficult to reconcile, she is my mum at the end of the day. I treat yours like a queen, and always will do, but the disrespect towards mine makes me feel sick- especially after the mountain of support we get from them. Dad has repeatedly offered to help us with work on the house, simply because he wanted to help us, yet it so often felt as though you assumed that either he or I must have some ulterior motive. I have even passed comment about dad’s help to your parents, [his SIL] and [his brother] - no one could ever understand it.
And then there have been things more recently that I simply cannot get past. Opening a letter about our divorce and throwing it at me in front of the children was completely unacceptable. So was involving [DD1] in what is happening between us and telling her that she has “one home”. Whatever happens between you and me, she should never be made to feel that she has to choose between us, or that the home she has with me is somehow not her home. She is eight years old. She needs to feel completely secure and loved by both of us, in both homes, and protected from the adult issues between us. All I do is tell her how loved and supported she is by us both.
I know you are grieving now, and I know how incredibly painful that is. I went through that grief earlier this year. I have had months - if not years - to process all of this as it played out, to reach the point I am at now and, gradually, to feel stronger again. You haven’t had that time yet.
I’m genuinely sorry that you are hurting. I don’t take any pleasure from seeing you like this and none of it is easy for me either. But this isn’t a decision I have made suddenly or lightly. So much has happened, and it has happened over so many years. I have asked, waited, hoped and tried for such a long time.
I wish things had changed when there was still time for them to change. But for me, sadly, it is just too late now.