Okay here goes, it's a bit WTF at first, but hang in there, and bear in mind I have PMT right now!:
Sometimes I miss you. Sometimes it is irrelevant that you hate me and will never talk to me again. When you let slip your frailties, such as apologising for a mistake
because you did not have your glasses, I want to weep. I am swamped with tender feelings for you, the first man I was able to properly love, and was decimated in return.
Its just that I learned SO much about you! I know you inside out. I know that you really believe that I had an affair and you feel hurt beyond measure. I know that inside you dislike so much, including yourself, and you miss talking to me, as I miss talking to you. Nothing else matters, nothing you did was bad enough to counteract these feelings because I wanted to love you so much, to know you and be loved and known in return.
But there it all falls down.
Supposing you decided to forgive me for my percieved error (which would be galling for a start, since I did not leave you for anyone), and wanted to try again, I could not. I could not trust you, and you are not what I need in a partner. You paid no attention to my needs at all. Only those which you saw fit to recognise. When I said it was over, to your face, you thought nothing of still texting me that you missed me, that you still loved me. You saw nothing inappropriate in this, even though, beyond a single, initial acknowledgement that I missed you too, I did not reciprocate.
And then you found out I was seeing someone else. You let loose the bile. Of course this was the reason I had left! There could be no other explanation. Now you were
free to hate me, and hate me you did. Like a child who has been refused a favourite toy, you let loose a stream of insults which I shrugged off - after all, once the father of your child has said "I hope you die" on the cusp of your giving birth, few things can consequently sting. I accepted my role as the villain with equanimity, neither confirming nor denying, challenging the odd point here and there, but never descending to a slanging match.
I still hope, you see, that one day we will be friends.
It is laughable really, have I learned nothing at all? You are not capable of anything but the the most superficial relationship, one where you can wear your affable, friendly or mildly-depressed mask, the one you assume when you want people to feel sorry for you. You will never grow up, never progress, it saddens me so much. You are a manchild, and I had so much love for you, which I had take back, as you soaked it up and gave back so little.
And so I leave you in your state of wounded, ignorant indignance, casting about for another "soulmate", a woman to project your needs onto, to relate your bowel movements to, to accuse, manipulate, harangue and mither. I leave you in your uneven mix of genius and child, I miss the intellectual chats that masked an ego trip for you and a chance to communicate. In the end it was the only satisfying way to communicate, the only way I could fool myself I was talking to a fully rounded human being, a poet, a lovely man, because no-one who wrote like that could really hurt another person, could they? But you borrowed and copied and assimilated and recreated and you made it work because of your charisma and sheer force of will, because when you smiled and spoke in that voice, you caught up people, eyes shining, in your wake, and they fell for it all, fell for your mask, really believed that was the real "you", when the real you was a black pit of despair, irritable, easily bored, condemning all as banal. And when, by a sheer lucky of draw of chemicals that day, you were in a good mood, I still had to walk on eggshells for fear of dismantling the bonhomie with a single, ill-chosen phrase.
Why did you have to be so incomplete? Why could you not have been the man you pretended to be? Because, I know now, he never existed. He was, at the start, my reward for showing you unconditional love, for reflecting the sparkle you raised in me, back at you, for being that man I had always sought - older, handsome, secure, intelligent, creative, neglected, cast aside by a younger, callous wife, who had done his best to raise his beautiful children under difficult circumstances. I let much pass me by in my desperate drive to believe in this fantasy, even though it began to erode almost as quickly as it had arrived. You had pre-warned me about being difficult when writing, about your "cyclonic depressions". You were quick to pinpoint my weaknesses and insecurities and use them against me, all in the name of love, of course. We quickly - too quickly - became a team, a unit, I was besotted . I felt your presence beside me even in your absence, and it was comforting. For the first time, possibly ever, I felt there was someone who really knew me, who was on my side, who i could rely on. I was hooked. Easy prey, and I would stay this way for many years, accepting verbal abuse, physical abuse, financial abuse, controlling behaviour, manipulation, denial, minimisation and blame.
Eventually though, the centre could not hold, and I was able to let you go, no longer able to deny the feeling in my gut, no longer able to pretend that I saw a future with you, that the love I felt was enough, because I knew what you were showing me in return, this surly, resentful, scant, bare bones of a relationship, which lacked tenderness or intimacy or any kind of adult exchange, was so laughably short of what I deserved, that being on my own was better.