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Sunday, April 5, 2015

Free from the Other. It is not my problem, and I won't make it mine either.

Facebook has an "Other" folder for messages. It's where messages go if I'm not Facebook friends with the person who sent it. I think I knew it was there, but I had never checked it until yesterday.

I discovered some nice messages from people thanking me for my Ordain Women profile, and for the Sunday spotlight interview I did a month or so ago. It also had a message from my ex-husband. It had been there a while, so for him this is way old news. For me, it's pretty darn fresh.

I didn't know what to do with it. I don't know what to do with it, so I guess I have decided to write about it here.


This post isn't to him, but of course he's welcome to read it. This is for me, and for anyone else who is trying to figure out what to do with past abusers, forgiveness, apologies, etc.

A couple years ago, I wrote the blog post "The Letter I Will Never Send", because I was contacted by the Catholic church asking what I thought about his getting remarried. They asked me to describe my marriage and my experiences with him. I chose not to do anything with their questions except to write my experiences FOR ME.

I guess he read it.
"Hey Jen,
I wanted to write you because there is a lot I have been thinking about for a long time. Someone alerted me to the blog you wrote and it solidified what I think I didn't quite understand before. Where I didn't think rushing you into sex so often was kind, I didn't understand how bad it was. I didn't know to you it was a forced obligation. I thought because I had your consent it was o.k. --I didn't realize how abusive that was to you. I think aside from that, we both went into things unprepared and unrealistic and hurt each other. I am truly sorry, I realize now how hurt you were. I don't want there to be any tension in the future and I hope you are and continue to do well in your life. It would mean everything to me if you would forgive me.
-L"
Since writing the letter, and the response to it, I hadn't thought much about him. I am still dealing with some false beliefs about relationships. I am still dealing with a lot of guilt and shame that is left from a lifetime of abuse - which included my life with him - but was not limited to just him. I have had to completely reconstruct my whole emotional/mental/spiritual foundation, which takes a lot of time and a lot of work. (That could be the understatement of the century.)


Reading his message, my initial reaction was fear. I was afraid that he could find me, and I wanted to hide.

Then I felt like I needed to write back and apologize for not responding sooner: to tell him that I hadn't seen it, but now that I had, give him a response that would make him feel better. I felt like I should tell him I wasn't angry and I had totally forgiven him... but I didn't do any of that.

Todd told me to tell him to "Fuck off."
I wasn't entirely against the idea, but it didn't really resonate with how I was feeling.

I thought about asking how I had hurt him and apologizing for anything I had done to him, and then I realized: I DON'T CARE

I have had to work my ass off to recover from what he did. I have gone to therapy, I have read books, I have cried, I have gone through flashbacks and nightmares. I have spent countless hours thinking and rethinking, so that I could make sense of the world around me. I have spent time talking to others about how they treat their wives, and defining rape, and going to SLUT walks, and writing and writing and writing and crying and then writing more. I didn't ask him to apologize. (In fact, if he read anything besides that one post - he would have seen that I didn't want an apology.) I didn't ask him to do anythig. All I did was to go out and do MY work to make peace with what he did and what was my life.

I worked hard, and I have created a beautiful life. I didn't need anything from him, and I don't care what would mean the world to him...  What he needs and wants doesn't matter to me. I can finally say what he needs and wants and thinks and does means nothing to me. I wish him no ill will. I also don't wish him happiness. He gets to exist completely separate from me.

(Oh, and there is no tension between us, because there is nothing between us. That is exactly how I want it.)

I don't know what prompted him to write me - maybe he was trying to repent, and apologizing to me was part of that... but that's a pretty shitty apology. If I cared about him and his repentance, I would suggest that to him: Learn to apologize and take some responsibility if you actually want forgiveness. But I don't care about his repentance, or his work, or what he needs to learn or do... He gets to be responsible for his own learning and growing, and I get to completely dismiss it. It's his, and has nothing to do with me.

I have gone through anger at him. I have gone through all kinds of emotions, and now... I am at peace.  I don't know if that means I have forgiven him. (I am not a fan of the word forgiveness - I think too often it is used to manipulate and control. In too many cases, it is used to shift responsibility from an abuser to the victim.)

I have cried a lot in the last couple of days. I am not even sure what the tears were for. I just felt like crying, so I did. And now, I feel more free than I have felt in a long time.

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