Love Letters to a Healing Heart

You are 100% responsible for your infidelity and lies. K is 100% responsible for her decision to call C and out you.  C is 100% responsible for every decision and action she has taken since the moment she found out.

Stop thinking you deserve to be hurt by her. Stop seeking out the abuse and pain.

– A Friend

I’m a mess. Clearly.

After 40 days I am still nearly non-functional on many levels. Weekends are the worst. About the only thing working is my ability to write. The words are pouring out of me like blood from a stuck pig.

Here are some random and ongoing thoughts that have no answer:

• If I’m hurting this much after 40 days how badly must you still be hurting?
• I hurt you. Am I responsible for making it better? How can I if you won’t talk to me? Am I suppose to just sweep it under the rug? Fight for you? Ignore you? Wait?
• Did you send me away to make you feel safer or because you are avoiding the really hard feelings of anger and jealousy?
• We all make rash decisions out of pain and anger. You told me to leave. I left. When do I go back? Can I? Do I deserve to be exiled from my home? Community?
• Money was my responsibility in the Partnership. Since you told me to leave and haven’t spoken to me in 40 days am I still responsible for paying the bills even though I’m living between the van, hotel rooms and my parent’s couch? Do I send you my last $8?
• If I stop sending money am I betraying her again? Am I paying the bills to be helpful? Am I responsible? To hang onto hope? For control? To buy forgiveness? As penance? When does my responsibility end?
• We had mutual friends? Do I still have friends? Are they your friends now? My friends? Our friends? Are we teams now? My team is telling me to be patient, tend my own garden and stop paying the bills. But I haven’t stopped. Why?
• What is your team telling her? Am I a monster? Pathological? Danergous? A grifter?
• If I stop paying the bills will you think I’m being mean? Vindictive? Controlling? Evil? Should what you think even matter to me? But it does…
• Why does it matter to me? Are you using that against me? Am I enabling you? Caretaking you when you are capable of taking care of yourself? Am I repeating the same codependent mistakes I made with K with you now? Are you being cruel for the sake of vengeance?
• You seem to easily have cast me aside, was there something more wrong with our relationship? Did you want out but didn’t know how to end it? Had I done something else that hurt you that you didn’t talk to me about?
• The small and limited kindness you’ve shown me, is that simply about making sure I keep paying the bills? One of the only time you’ve written was about money after I told you the doctor told me to stop paying the bills. Is that all that matters?
• My best thinking created this mess. Should I trust my behavioral psychologist’s thinking? S’s thinking? A’s thinking? M’s thinking? They all say I should have stopped sending you money weeks ago. Why do I ignore the council of smart people?
• You scrubbed every image of us together from your social media accounts. Is that intent? Anger? If it’s intent should take the message at face value? If it’s anger should I let it pass?
• Friends all say the same thing: “What the fuck, Sean!” I concur! “WHAT THE FUCK?” Then they add, “So you’re human after all.” Yeah…
• Why have you found it necessary to tell so many people all the details? Why has she sought out people on the outside of our small social circles to share so many humiliating details? Was that the goal? Punishment? Shame? Justification?
• Someone accused me of grooming you. Even after my falling out with your sisters I still encouraged her to go and spend time with them and to call them. I think I did. Didn’t I? I offered numerous times to take you to your dad’s house or to pick him up and take him places for us. Do you really believe I was trying to isolate you from other people? Based on what evidence? Is there something about myself I don’t know?
• You have been saying you wanted to go to counseling. Was there something you were hiding? Did you have a secret too? Were you unhappy?
• Someone said to me last week that you decided to simply abandon the relationship without even a fight is a reflection of how you felt about us long term. That you don’t believe there was anything of value worth fighting for…or even about.  Is that true?
• And why F? Why did you send me to Fs house the weekend that K called you? Why did you use her? To watch me? Report on me? Take care of me? Why would you think that is where I’d go? The way you talk about her, you repeatedly referred to her as unsafe. So why F?
• I had friends in Luck that invited me to stay with them. I only went because that’s what you said to do. I could have stayed closer. Why wouldn’t you let me? Why did I do what you wanted?
• Did you think I was dangerous and would hurt you? Is that why W threatened me? Did you tell him I physically threatened or intimidated you? Why would he think that? Why would he act that way towards me? I never behaved that way towards us? Was it to salt the earth against my return?
• It feels like some of the actions you’ve made are intentional to hurt me or punish me. Ignoring my texts, phone calls, emails and questions or opening up our private life for rumours and gossip. This resulted in my loss of face and makes it incredibly hard to ever return home without serious humbling to near strangers. Was that intentional? Is that why I’m getting the silent treatment? Ignored?
• Do you hate me? You must hate me. Do you do things like this to people you love?
• You know I was jealous right? I always thought you missed being with a musician. That you would have preferred to be with another artist…or at least someone that would have helped you paint the garage. Someone handier than me. Someone financially more stable for you and your boys. Was that why you went to lunch with K?
• Were you trying to make me jealous? Was it a warning? Intent? A request?
• Is that true? Are you using this to get something you need and want that I cannot provide you creatively? Sexually? Emotionally? Financially? Did you really feel like I simply wanted to be your sugar daddy?
• When I said earlier this year I needed to deal with the hard stuff, this was it. Is this how you would have reacted regardless of how you learned? Would you have tossed me aside so quickly and abandoned the relationship if I had told you instead of K? Is this where we would have been anyway?
• And the root canal.  When you found out about needing to see another specialist why did you call your dad first and ask him for help financially? Did I do something wrong? Why didn’t you discuss it with me first?
• Was I too involved in your business? Did you think I was trying to steal it? Run it? Why did you stop talking to me about your art? Was I not being supportive? Were you afraid I was dissatisfied with the money? Did you resent what I thought was trying to help? Was I not supportive enough?
• You refused to talk honestly with me about your plans for your art or your business finances. Did you feel like I was trying to take over? Control you? Was I embarrassing you? Why did you hide the PayPal debt from me? Was there other debt you were hiding?
• Is there truly no hope? Is this what you want or is it you don’t know how to move forward? Is that why you won’t speak to me? Are you afraid if you speak to me you might discover you still love me and work on things? Do you feel anything besides hurt and anger towards me?
• You say I need you to “continue with my financial commitments.” Why?
• You say I “caused this situation.” By having an affair that I’ve clearly spent over a year trying to get out of? It wasn’t an active affair and I got caught. It was active lie. Is that splitting hairs? Minimizing your feelings? Isn’t it really your choices post-discovery that led is here? How am I responsible for your choices? Have I made you responsible for my infidelity?
• You say I “need to take responsibility” with no explanation of what that means to you. What does that look like? How is that different than what I am doing? Why do you care if the relationship is over? How can I know what that means to you if you don’t have the willingness to talk with me? Am I suppose to guess? I cannot hear you or see you if you won’t talk to me.
• You said we aren’t partners but you still are taking money from me. Why? If you want me out of your life why still take money? Are you using me? Getting even?
• Am I doing what you need? Want? Is there something more you need? I’m willing to fight for us and the possibilities? Will you let me? Does it matter to you?
• You say you are going to counseling? You blame the reason we cannot talk is that you are being treated for codependency. Codependents talk. They work on things. They have conversations. They don’t hide.
• Do they hide? Are you hiding because you see me as an abuser? A predator?
• Would you give me some feedback? Be angry with me? Tell me off? Ask a question? Anything? Something?
• Every mile I’ve driven since I left I’ve wanted to share with you. I always think of you and carry you in my heart. Every moment since we met has been one mile closer to you…now I just drive farther away. Don’t you feel the distance too? It’s heartbreaking…maybe if we’re driving towards each other it would start mending both our heart. Can we try? Can we talk about it?