Dear Husband

just a soul cleansing letter I will never send. Pretty sure the divorce papers will make it clear enough

Dear Husband,

Happy 20th Anniversary. I have always enjoyed thinking up and picking out the perfect gift for you. I usually get so excited about seeing the look of surprise on your face. I try not to let it bother me that even after all the years we spent together, you don't know me well enough to choose a gift without asking me what I want...if you think to do anything at all. This year things are so different. I won't be picking out any more gifts for you. I realize nothing I did was ever good enough in your eyes anyway. I want you to know it was always my intention to protect you and to help you. I loved you with everything I had and everything I was. But your ego made me choose between being a dutiful wife and being a good mother. Your anger and wrath repeatedly forced me to choose between caring for the wounded boy inside you and tending to the physical and psychological wounds you inflicted upon me and our children. You always treated me like the enemy. But if I had really wanted to destroy you, I could have done so a million times. Like when I called Family Advocacy at our second base instead of the base police when you tried to choke me. Or when I lied to the gate guard at our third and told him I was fine when he noticed my swollen bruised face and busted lip as I was driving you to work after you lost your temper and acted as if I'd deserved it. Or when the property manager came to the house overseas to do our monthly inspection and I tried to hide the gash in the closet door left by the plate of spaghetti you threw at my head. Or when coworkers noticed the bruises on my arms from when you threw me down the steps at my parents' home and I lied for you. Today I have been thinking about all our memories that I always avoided thinking about just so I could get through another day. Like the million times you gaslighted me and made me feel like I was crazy. The times you'd call me at work and pick a fight, accusing me of cheating and spreading your business around and giving your "enemies" ammunition...making me so upset and hysterical that I couldn't care for my patient and had to call in back up and come home just so you could win and have that control. The times you told me I wasn't your equal, that you deserved and could do so much better than me. The times you would tell me how all the girls in high school wanted you, and I was LUCKY to have you. The times you told me my friends were just using me, and I couldn't trust them. The times you told me it was my fault you lost your career in the Air Force, even though all you had to do to keep it was exercise 30 minutes a day, four times a week on your free time to lose that extra inch around the waist that those second helpings of my cooking gave you. Yeah, I've been reminscing, honey. The times you called me stupid, fat, worthless. I won't even speak on what happened in that hotel room or the ways you destroyed me that day. No. I won't give you the satisfaction. This year is very special. Twenty years is a long time. Too long. So, even though it's a day late...today at 11 am I am going to give myself a gift. Freedom. Hope. A chance at true happiness. Today, I'm gonna go see my lawyer...and I'm gonna put a big fat check in his hand. And I'm gonna let him fight for me because you never would. Today I file for divorce. Happy Anniversary, honey.


Your formerly loving wife.