Family Forum / Marriage / Divorce / December 2004

Dear STBX,

It wasn't easy to break up after 25 years together --such a LONG
time.After 10 months of separation and with divorce on the horizon,  I
say goodbye to the dreams of our raising our younger child together, of
celebrating family milestones together (graduations, weddings,
grandchildren). I say goodbye to dreams of retiring together and
growing old together and even going through the final journey as a
married couple.I say goodbye to the idea and ideal of an intact family.
I say goodbye to the stability and respectability and the sense of
rootedness I had because I was your wife.

On the other hand, I am very glad and relieved to say goodbye to:

1. The stress and tension and depressed energy you
seem to carry with you, an energy that affected the whole household
when you were around. Goodbye to the way you constantly put your head
in your hands, or rubbed your eyes, or sighed that exasperated sigh...
as we all made you so miserable. Goodbye to the misery you wore on your
sleeve, and the feeling that I was somehow the source of that misery.

2. The stressful dinners, almost every night, that ended in an argument
and indigestion.

3. The way you treated our son, which was argumentative, belittling and
often humiliating. I don't understand if or why you felt threatened by
his intellect and his opinions but I didn't like the way you often
treated him. Yeah, he was a difficult kid, but he worshipped you and
respected you and he deserved better than that. It was painful to watch
and I thank my lucky stars I don't have to see it anymore, and that
more importantly, it happens less frequently because you don't have as
many opportunities.

4. The way you sometimes manhandled him, even if he provoked it. I
remember all the times you kicked him out of the car and made him walk
home, the time you grabbed him and completely ripped off his sleeve,
the bloody nose you gave him... even if he was almost as big as you and
even if he started it, you should have been above it and you were not.

5. I'm glad to say goodbye to your lack of interest in sex, and the way
it made me feel. I remember the time I posed for you in my new teddy
and you looked at me with some combination of amusement and detachment.
I felt like a fool.

6. I'm glad to say goodbye to your intensifying interest in your band,
the way it took you away from me and the family, the kind of nightlife
you experienced as a musician, the flirtations with your singer, the
affectionate emails between the two of you and the endless suspicion
and jealousy it caused me.

7. I'm glad to say goodbye to feeling unimportant in your life, feeling
like a low priority who wasn't valuable enough to invite on business
trips when your other colleagues seemed excited about taking their
wives along.

8. I'm glad to say goodbye to all your neuroses, and the way they
infected the rest of us. Your fear of traveling in bad weather, and how
it stopped us from taking road trips. Your fear of flying, which our
son now shares.

9. I am THRILLED to say goodbye to all the crappy TV shows that
permeated our airspace, especially the shows that made me wonder
whether you had a thing for younger women, or other women... the
obsession with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and before that, Xena the
Warrior. Goodbye to feeling that any crap on TV was more appealing to
you than talking to me..the incredibly stupid B-grade westerns and any
show that featured nubile young women, like Charmed. Goodbye to feeling
like I had to compete with Alyssa Milano for your attention.

10. I am glad to say goodbye to the way you seemed to put TV above me,
how you watched it every single night instead of making any kind of
intimate connection with me, the way you raised the volume when I tried
to talk to you sometimes, even when the time I came downstairs and told
you I thought I might be experiencing perimenopause... I remember how
you looked at me blankly and reached for that damn remote control. And
I remember how much I really hated you then. I am glad to say goodbye
to those feelings.

11. I am glad to say goodbye to all the subtle ways you humiliated and
embarrassed me: how you interrupted my business meetings and business
phone calls to make juvenile demands, your way of saying that my work
didn't count as much as your need for attention, your need to
demonstrated your dominance, just like a dog peeing to mark his
territory.

12. I'm glad to say goodbye to the way you managed to spoil so many
family celebrations. The way you stopped talking to me when we
vacationed in Wisconsin, and then after I begged you to tell me what
was bothering you, you finally told me that you thought I was too busy
with work. And then when I gave up my work to help improve our
marriage, nothing really changed. You continued to be withholding and
uninterested in sex. So yes, I'm very glad to say goodbye to all that.

13. And goodbye to way you made other people--my friends!--feel
sometimes. How almost everyone said they were intimidated by the way
you spoke on the phone and some (strong, smart women) were even
hesitant to call the house for fear that you'd pick up.

14. And goodbye to the way you responded to some really nice people,
and how that made me feel self conscious and uncomfortable. Like the
time Laura stopped by our table at the cafe and talked (maybe a little
too long for your taste). So that when she finally left, you were mad
at her and even mad at me simply because she stopped by for some
friendly chat. You were often unfriendly to people who mattered to me,
and I thought that was, ultimately, a sign of disrespect to me. So yes,
a hearty goodbye to feeling self conscious and afraid that someone
might have the nerve to talk to us when we're "out on the town." Or in
a supermarket. Or anywhere else.

15. Goodbye to the way you deliberately DIDN'T do what I asked you to
simply because I asked you, and presumed you'd actually respond. Like
the time I asked you to bring in perishable groceries from the car but
you were busy watching TV and never brought them in, and in fact
perceived my request as a kind of nagging. I couldn't understand why
you'd think that. I wasn't a nag. And I usually tried to do things on
my own. But that day I asked for help and you seemed to take pleasure
in making me (and the perishables) wait. Goodbye to that!

16. Goodbye to the way you behaved those times you came home to a messy
kitchen, the way you wouldn't smile or make eye contact, how you
withdrew from me... all because of a few drinking glasses on the
kitchen counter. I have seen your new apartment and every time I've
been there I've been struck by the enormous mess... so it wasn't me or
my mess after all.

17. Goodbye to the knot in my stomach I'd get every time I heard the
garage door open, and how I felt compelled to frantically clear the
counter and kitchen table, even if I'd only just gotten home myself. Of
course I take responsibility for my response: no one can force another
person to behave that way... it was my choice, but I felt at the time
that I had no other choice. I didn't want you to be mad.

18. Goodbye to all the time you spent on email, the way you quickly
closed the email window when I walked into the room, the email
flirtations you had with various women, the back-and-forth emails that
were practically real-time conversations when you could have been
talking to me.

19. Goodbye to your reaction almost every time I cooked a meal, the way
you'd ask, what's in this? Or say, this chicken is overcooked with that
pained, disappointed look on your face. I'm no Betty Crocker but I'm
not a bad cook. And goodbye to your criticizing how I loaded the
dishwasher. I remember how you called me downstairs, as if I was a
child, and said, "Watch closely. THIS is how one loads a dishwasher."
Goodbye to your criticism, your arrogance and your condescension.

20. Goodbye to your stale, pungent body odor and bad breath, which you
inherited from your father and probably will never get rid of. (This
feels mean to say, but since you will never get this letter, I might as
well mention it.) Which reminds me, goodbye to your parents, who never
really liked me much... to be more specific would require an entirely
new list so I'll just leave it at that.

I know it will take months, maybe years, before I completely feel the
gratitute and relief I've expressed in this note. But I'm hoping that
this letter with its 20 different goodbyes will help me along my
journey. Goodbye.