If I knew then what I know now: a letter to my ex-husband. Owning my part.
Dear Rex,
Sometimes I wonder what life would have been like if I had been back then who I am now. I thought you were the one who was emotionally unstable and I was disgusted that you seemed unable to get yourself together and take responsibility for your life. But now that you are gone, I have learned in so many ways how I failed you and how I contributed to the downfall of our relationship. I have recently heard several women talk about how they had divorced their husbands years ago and after both parties did a lot of healing work, they got remarried. I used to think that was a ridiculous fantasy, but as I see how different I am, I wonder if that would have been possible for us. We were young and unconscious of our childhood emotional neglect (CPTSD).
So many nights we spent awake while you told me what a loser you were and how I’d be better off without you. I used to tell you that you were romantic and funny. I enumerated all your good qualities. I admired your outgoing nature, your story telling talent, and how you always knew what to say. You seemed to know everything about everything, even if you really didn’t. You could play a crowd and make the wall flower feel seen. I told you that I loved you and you made my life better, that you gave me confidence in your shadow. But I only made you feel worse. I had no idea then how invalidating I was in trying to talk you out of your feelings. I wasn’t listening to you. All I wanted was to cheer you up and make you happy. After all, you even told me when we were on the brink of divorce that my job as your wife and yours as my husband was to make each other happy. But I couldn’t. That was an inside job. And your misery made me miserable too.
What you needed was for me to say I saw you. You needed me to witness your pain and validate that your experience was that life sucked. You were right: no one did understand you. My poor Holden Caulfield was not just some imbalanced borderline character who needed to try harder to be happy. No, you were suffering with your own inner demons that nobody who came before me, and nobody who came after me, could see. You were a highly sensitive person among people who had no emotional awareness. How could any one of us see you when we couldn’t see ourselves?
You were also right that I was controlling and manipulative, giving you unsolicited advice and caretaking instead of compassionately holding you accountable. Certainly I was well-meaning, but intention does not negate impact. Anne Lamont said “help is the sunny side of control,” which is a key ingredient to codependency. It takes two to make a co-. And I thought it was just all your fault. How mistaken I was to think I was so much more evolved that a mature person was one that didn’t feel emotions. I can see how I treated you like everyone else had, and how painful it was to feel unseen and unknown.
I understand now because I can feel. I know from my own experience now what it is like to feel unseen and unknown. To have my deep emotions and reality invalidated and denied. Often, we need to be rejected in the same way we once rejected another to be able to wake up to what it’s like on the receiving end. And so it was with me. In my grief, I discovered the root cause of mine and your and so many others’ wounding. And I am amazed that while the rest of us learned to shove our emotions underground, you managed to hold onto yours. And it became the weapon with which everyone beat you, including yourself.
It is too late for you, Dearly Beloved. But it is not too late for your children. I carry your torch now, having bled on my own sword, and my wound is now wrapped up. It has healed at least enough for me to be equipped to remind our children how to feel. In my awakened state, I am healing the wounds passed down from both our families, honoring your legacy of emotional attunement, matching it with my own regulation. I have learned to validate, to hold space, and to co-regulate. I continue to break generational patterns of over-functioning and under-feeling.
I may not have been there for you, but I’m here now for our children. And I wonder if you had been given the resources and support I found after you left, would you too have learned healthier ways of relating? Would our kids have been given a second chance at two available parents? We shall never know. But I am sorry for the pain I caused, and I pray you now feel seen and known by those who surround you in heaven.
Sincerely,
Your Eternal Ex
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