I want to despise you, but I can't. I pity you. I wonder what happened to you before we met that you brought so much chaos into our home and caused so much damage over the years - a cargo ship of feces!
I understand you were unhappy that you didn't get the husband or life that you wanted or expected. But I don't understand why you sabotaged me. Nor do I understand why you acted so selfishly, causing so much pain and hurt to the children.
I don't understand why you don't keep the commitments that you demanded be memorialized in the divorce decree. Is it you think you hurt me by hurting the children. Oh, wait, like I said in court, you won't keep a vow you made before God and 500 of our family and friends, what on earth makes anyone think you'd be bound to a court paper that was nodded to before the court reporter. Oh, that's right, you lied about your faith too. So yes, your word means nothing. I know you're lying by your lips moving...learned that from your mom?
That I'm cleaning up your messes again: what you're reneging on in terms of commitment to our daughter,'cause you know that I won't let her down.
You have the temerity to tell our daughter that she's got Stockholm Syndrome and I'm a NPD. Face it, they chose to stay with me because they understand the difference between weird and bat shit crazy! Yes, I'm weird, I was a stay home dad: I nurtured and nursed them, I taught them right from wrong, I spent time with them, I encouraged them to speak up for themselves, I accepted them and loved them unconditionally. And I still do.
You sent naked pics of yourself through the family shared email, you dropped your vibrator on the wooden floor over our son's room while sexting some a**whole with the volume all the way up on your iPad, you took the food money to buy plane tickets to have a weekend tryst (oh he promised to reimburse you for travel, but you took the money and bought new underwear and a plane ticket to meet another adulterous prick - and you don't understand why the word "whore" applies to you?).
You planned the divorce with your family of origin and your mother bank rolled it. You took money from our account and used it for down payment on leased car in your mother's name so you had no asset. Sneaky slimy loathsome pieces of excrement - you and your whole family.
That you lied and distorted and betrayed so much so often to so many. You never apologized, you never forgave, you never took responsibility, (your moma rescued you from big bad me 'cause blood's thinker than anything - just like she bailed out your convicted pedophile brother - never questioning or doubting your veracity) but why didn't your mother do anything for our children? Their her blood too?
It was our daughter who did the research and proposed that you have borderline personality disorder "BPD." It was our children who said you are abandoning us. I never put those words in their mouths. What a legacy!
So, I've spent four years in weekly therapy. I'm not NPD. More likely PTSD from living with BPD. I've taken a look back and I see I made some whopper mistakes.
For all the mistakes I've made that hurt you or disappointed you or embarrassed you, I AM SORRY! Please forgive me? I, like you, am human. I'm imperfect. I had my own rose colored glasses and viewed the world through a narrow lens. I've learned that my message may have been on point, but my delivery sucked.
I'm sorry I didn't make as much money as I dreamed I would before we got married - as it turns out the kids needed attention that I felt more important than money, so yes I put my time and energy into them, not the career.
I understand now that I don't control you and never did. I did ask for your help and asked for your participation, but in a manner that you couldn't/wouldn't respond to, and it became a battle for power and control. But, hell, three head on collisions with the kids in the car? Something needed to change. It wasn't me behind the wheel or even in the car. Did you know that falling asleep behind the wheel is on it's face evidence of negligence?
After all we have been through, that you'd throw in the towel just as the children were taking off for college? The hardest part was over, the kids were ready to take off on their own and engage the world. No, you have to have your shit show and piss on their respective graduations, college visits, school selections, and then deliberately sabotage the financial aid applications. And they know that is all you.
All the time and money spent on divorce. I'm heart broken. You say you had enough, but of what? you were out drinking after work when you told me you were working overtime. You came home and passed out until dinner was ready for five years! You were too (I don't know what) to do laundry or got to the kids school activities, all you had energy for was to bitch, complain, deride, undermine, lie, and screw other men. And that is somehow all my fault.
Do you remember the day our daughter did that magazine survey test? the one hundred questions? She interviewed you first privately, then she interviewed me. About half way through my interview she started crying. At the end she said she didn't understand, "...dad, you answered 99 of the questions for mom correctly, but she only answered one right for you! What's wrong?"
I don't think I started as codependent, but I sure tried to know you and please you. But as Hank Williams said, I tried and I tried to keep you satisfied, but you just wouldn't be....
If you read this and recognized me or yourself here, I really do wish you peace and healing. I don't want you back in my life, but I do wish you could have a healthy relationship with our daughter because that's what she wants with you. I know I've grown and changed, so I can't rule out that possibility for you.
I'll close on this: Over the last two years I was terrified about losing our daughter to suicide. All I heard was her pain, her anger, her rage, reports on you not keeping your word, late with documents due to school like proof of medical insurance, and unpaid co-pays so she couldn't register for next semester, or that you had been in town every other weekend since the divorce, but only made time to visit with her twice in two years. Then one day, after I had just spent two hours listening to her cry, complain, and grieve, you called. She got on the phone with you and told you all about how great school and work and friends and the apartment and the car and life was. For a moment I was stunned. Who was this person - who's life is she talking about. I asked her about it after she got off the phone with you. She said, "..Dad! We both know we can't trust mom. What kind of fool would I be to waste my time telling her my problems or real feelings? She'd either blame me for it or hang up the phone on me.
And yes, dad, I see your point: I'll start sharing the good stuff with you going forward. And Dad, your the best mother I ever had!"
The ball is in your court. The opportunity is there. Will you seize it? Or will you blame someone else for what you missed?
Thank you for leaving. thank you for my new life.
So
[This message edited by Healershaman at 12:02 AM, September 23rd (Monday)]