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.