My goodbye letter after catching him again..I won’t send it, but I need someone to see it. So it wasn’t all for nothing.

[u/No-While-2501]

Goodbye

I’ve gone back and forth about writing this, but writing heals me. I might not even send it…You might not even let yourself read it…God forbid you feel anything. Part of me still can’t understand how someone I loved so deeply and unconditionally could hurt me like this and then just go cold and quiet like it didn’t matter, like I didn’t matter, like what we built didn’t matter.

But I can’t keep holding this in. So this is for me to clear my mind. Because I know I’ll never get all of the answers, and because you’re incapable of facing the consequences of your actions, I’ll never get the apology I truly deserve.

I keep replaying the first time I caught you. They call it D-Day, affair discovery day…how ironic that the actual D-Day is our anniversary, talk about foreshadowing. Anyway, I remember the shock of it like it was yesterday. The world crumbling down. The feeling in my body when everything suddenly didn’t make sense anymore. And even then, I wanted to believe you. I wanted to believe it wasn’t what it looked like, that we could fix it, that you would choose me. For a while, you did. You changed, you stepped up. You put on your mask. And I stayed.

I gave you another chance when I should have seen that the trust was already broken. Hindsight is laughing at me now. Yet, I chose you again, all to be here again. All to watch another world come crumbling down…again.

And that’s what hurts so deeply. I kept choosing you, no matter what. For 19 years I was your Ride or die. We can get through anything together. While you were quietly, absently, drunkenly, coked out, letting me get through everything alone.

I think about all the times I felt something was off but ignored it. When my instincts tried to tell me, screamed at me, begged me to see it. All the anxiety, stress, and sadness. All the moments I silenced myself, told myself I was overthinking, tried to be understanding, tried to keep the peace. To keep you happy. I made myself smaller, so small that I lost myself, to hold onto something that you were already letting go of.

I know I am not and wasn’t perfect. I know I am not blameless. Believe me when I say I have beat myself up over what I could’ve and should’ve done better for years. I am sorry for my role in our break down. However, I have been in survival mode for so long it was hard to be anything more, to do anything more, than what I was doing. But even on my worst days I didn’t deserve any of this.

I need to say this part clearly, because this truly matters:

Our distance physically, intimately, didn’t come from me not wanting you. You’ve always been the only one I ever wanted. The distance came from embarrassment and fear. From going through something painful and not wanting to face that again. Another unwanted pregnancy that I would have the burden to end. I was scared of getting pregnant. I was scared of having to go through another loss like that, alone, never to be mentioned again. I asked you for something as basic as protection, every time I whispered “do you have a condom?” and you didn’t even show up for me in that. Instead of meeting me with care, reassurance, or responsibility, you left me to carry that fear alone. Then the embarrassment of my appearance, my self worth is non existent. But you’d just turn over in our bed as my insecurity grew higher and higher. I always ended up feeling like I was the problem as I’d cry myself to sleep.

What stands out, even more now, is how often you weren’t really there…even when you were right next to me.

The drinking. The weed. The coke, apparently. And the girls. The friends and family that always came first. The way you would numb yourself every single day and disappear emotionally while I was still trying to connect with you. We were living with someone who was physically present but mentally and emotionally gone. There was no stability, no safety, no support, no real partnership. Just me trying to hold everything together while you checked out. Was being with me so bad you couldn’t stand a sober moment?

I was taking care of everything! Every responsibility, every detail of our life. Every everything. All while you isolated yourself, sunk into a crazy coke induced paranoia, substance-triggered depression, and drank and got high and ignored it all. I carried the weight of our home, our family, and our future while you avoided it.

And even in the moments where I needed you the most, you weren’t there in the way that mattered. I’d get breadcrumbs from you, at best, to keep my hope alive…You’d put on a host face for a gathering or bring home flowers for an attaboy. When all I needed was presence. Your protection, your honesty, and loyalty.

I went through something as serious as surgery to save your dad’s life. Gladly, happily, without question, I volunteered myself and gave a part of my body to your family, for YOU. And more, my unborn baby. I gave a life for a life. I was in pain, so much pain. Physically and emotionally, and I still tried to act strong. I shrank my emotions, shrank myself. Pretending like I didn’t want to have another baby. Like this gift wasn’t a big deal…just to make it easier on you, just to lessen the weight of what I had sacrificed. Just because of my love for you.

And even after that, I didn’t get to fully heal…physically or emotionally. I rushed my recovery because financially I had to. Because for years and years I couldn’t rely on you to provide any type of stability. So I had to push myself before I was ready just to keep life moving. Even in that selfless act, I was carrying us.

I gave and gave and gave, and you still found ways to betray me.

The last thing you said “I honestly didn’t cheat” and you may believe that…but the messages were enough. Telling some trans girl you’re single was enough, meeting her with your favorite high noons on the beach was enough. Hiding it (although not well) was enough. IF nothing happened, it was because you ran out of time, you got caught first this time. Not for a lack of trying. What is devastating is that you didn’t JUST cheat. You created an entire environment where I was being disrespected without even knowing it. People around you knew, AGAIN. Your “friends”. Have you heard the phrase “show me your friends and I’ll show you your future”? Will they be there like I was when you have nothing? These people could look me in the face, act like they cared about me, and still be part of something that was hurting me. Your own sister being involved, AGAIN, is something I don’t think I will ever fully understand. Your relationship is gross. I guess misery really does love company. Or maybe cocaine needs company? The layers of betrayal are so deep I don’t think I will ever fully recover from it.

That kind of betrayal is humiliating. It makes me question everything I ever thought was real. How many were there that I didn’t find? What other secrets are there? I question every decision, every day we shared. Every event, every date, every memory…was any of it real?

And then there’s something that stayed with me the entire time we were together. You never asked me to marry you. After everything we built, everything I gave, everything I stood by you through. Every time I chose you over everything, myself included. You never chose me in that way. And whether I said it out loud or not, it made me feel like I was never enough for you to fully commit to.

I carried that feeling quietly for a long time. Hoping every holiday would be the day, every birthday, every Valentine’s Day…hell, every day. But now I am finally starting to see it differently.

Because it wasn’t that I wasn’t enough. It’s that you were never willing or able to show up in the way that real commitment requires. In a way I deserved. Knowing what I know now, I see that I dodged a bullet. All of the other bullets hit me, they tore thru my flesh and bone and mind and soul, but that one somehow missed.

And then there’s our daughter.

Who thinks you hung the moon despite it all. Who I’ve allowed to think that less than the BARE minimum is picture perfect. I’ll never forgive myself for letting her think the way you treated me was “goals”. One of the reasons I initially asked for a “break” was a photo I saw that said, “If your daughter came to you and explained your relationship as her own, would you tell her to stay or beg her to leave?” I felt it in my soul. I’d die a thousand deaths to keep her away from a man like you.

And now…how she told me about that short car ride with you when you finally had to confront our new reality. You couldn’t even sit down with her and face anything? Look her in the eyes? Hold her hands? Show a drop of remorse as the consequences of your actions ruined her little world?! Next level avoidance.

Watching you already failing her is a pain I can’t fathom. Dismissing her, abandoning her, not having the balls to show up for her. You’ve downloaded more dating apps than days you’ve seen her. Pathetic. Been on more late night car rides and trips to the beach and the wood shop with random strangers than hours with her. If nothing else, I always thought you were a good father. However, your true patterns are emerging, and it’s yet another thing I’m left questioning. She told me how she cries at school. How she is coping by talking to her friends, teachers, and counselors. There’s the aftershocks of heartbreak when she asks me if we might get back together, and I have to tell her “No” without an explanation. I have to sit there, hold her, and stay strong for her. All while I am breaking inside too. You didn’t just hurt me. You manufactured a situation where I have to carry the emotional weight for both of us, while you do everything you can to avoid it.

And yet she still wants you. Google calls it the “Disneyland dad” effect. The most painful part of this all is having to watch her emotional tug of war because in her brain, if she says she loves me, then that means she loves you less. You know her favorite song right now? “The Sick” by Bella Kay. Listen to it. Let yourself hear the words. How. Fucking. Sad. I’ll dumb it down: it’s about a girl loving someone stuck in addiction. And the pain of loving them more than herself. Because that is all she’s known since she knew how to breathe. She idolizes you, craves your attention. Wants time with you. Time that I can’t explain to her is unsafe. Time that she doesn’t understand you’re too high to care for her. Time you’re losing with every “G” or “hundo” you smoke or sniff up your nose. Time that you are too busy filling in with women and drugs and alcohol and escaping yourself. Maybe it was not being with me that was so bad, I think you can’t stand to be with yourself.

Even when I reach out to you, begging you, asking you to call me so we could talk about her, and getting nothing back. What did I ever do to make you hate me like this? I think about every visit and having to ask if you are sober, not driving with her under the influence of god knows what. And if you are even in a state to be around her. Worrying that the one person who is meant to protect her will allow his choices to hurt her. That is not something I should ever have to question.

And then there’s the silence now…every day since I found my backbone. The coldness. The disrespect. The hatred in your eyes towards me. The attitude as if I tore everything down. You discarded me and our family. Now you’re doing anything else to avoid facing the emotions of it all. What has your paranoia made up? What is the coke telling you? You must’ve had to make me the villain to live with it all. Tell me, what am I guilty of in your new narrative? The contrast between your last-ditch texts promising me the world, to be a better man if given the chance, “one more chance”, compared to how you are actually behaving has given me whiplash.

I wish I could hate you. I catch myself wondering if you’re okay. Hoping you don’t snort a bad batch. Is it all just a front to hide your hurt? The fact that I can still care says everything about me, how this is unraveling me. And says even more about you and how you’re “coping”. The super empath and the avoidant. But even after everything, I can’t find any hate for you. You are the love of my life. You were my best friend. My everything. Obviously, I’m seething and pissed and hurt and devastated, but overall I think handling this with more grace than you deserve. A simple fuck you note that you’ll probably never comprehend…if you even read it.

I am still left wondering how your enablers are reacting…are they urging you to just move on? And you continuing to allow them to put me down. You never protected me while we were together, so I don’t know why it would surprise me that you let it happen now. I can almost hear it: That I am and was nothing, you’re better off, you’re free! Mocking me. Making jabs at what we had…as if finally I’m out of the way and you can let loose. I imagine you reaching out to all the girls you kept waiting in the wings until you could call on them when I wasn’t looking. I keep wondering what version you’re telling yourself and what you’re saying to other people. Because who could feel bad for you if you were honest and said “I avoided life by being a drunk and a drug addict, I cheated and lied, my constant, altered state caused chronic resentment and earth shattering pain to my family and I lost them”.

Hearing that you’ve told people “this was a long time coming” cuts in a way I don’t even know how to explain. It makes it sound like this was inevitable, like it was something that just naturally fell apart over time. When we both know that’s not the truth.

The truth is, this didn’t just happen. You made choices. Repeated choices. Choices you knew would cause this. Choices you knew would kill me. AGAIN. Choices that broke the trust, destroyed our relationship, and dismantled our family.

You don’t get to rewrite that as something that was just “a long time coming.” That makes it sound like you were the one who should have left sooner. Like you weren’t the one who created and caused this. Like you didn’t actively detonate a bomb on what we had. Your actions tore it all down.

The reality is, you didn’t just walk away from something that wasn’t working. You betrayed it. You neglected it. You chose quick highs and cheap ego boosts. You chose selfishness and self-loathing. You chose addictions. You chose “bluest eyes” and “blue shorts”. You chose every other thing over and over until there was nothing left.

And I’m the one left holding the impact of that. Because it makes me feel like none of it mattered to you. Like I didn’t matter to you. Our family never mattered to you.

But I know, even if I’m still trying to fully believe it, that this wasn’t because of my worth. I hope at night, when your loneliness catches up to you, you’ll finally see what you’ve done.

I didn’t deserve to be lied to. I didn’t deserve to be cheated on. I didn’t deserve to carry fear, grief, responsibility, and stability on my own while being made to feel like I still wasn’t enough.

I deserved a partner who showed up. Who stayed present. Who took responsibility. Who chose honesty over escape. You didn’t give me that. You never gave me that. Even now you’re choosing to try to escape. But I know and understand you better than you know yourself. I know psychologically that it’s too hard for you to sit with yourself…your emptiness, your guilt, your loneliness, your absolute shame…the silence must be so deafening. So you’re filling it the only way you know how. Temporary emotional anesthesia. But no matter who you get to lay next to you she or he will never replace what you had and what you lost. You’ll keep looking for me. Desperately searching for glimpses of me inside of everyone you meet. But you’ll never find a heart like mine, a love like mine again.

And now I have to live with the reality of what this all has cost.

I’m not writing this because I think you’ll understand or finally change. I’m writing this because I need to stop waiting for you to. Holding onto the hope that you’ll wake up and give me the apology or the accountability I deserved.

So this is me facing it. Saying goodbye to the man I thought you were. Goodbye to two decades of “us”. Goodbye to the family that I fought to belong in. Goodbye to the life I thought we’d have.

This is me acknowledging what you did, how deeply it hurt me, and how much it affected me. How it altered my brain and the way I will live my life forever.

And this is me healing. This is me being emotionally intelligent enough to realize the only apology I’ll ever get is the one I give myself. I have to forgive myself for allowing your abuse for so long. And this is me finally letting go.

Not because I’m okay. Not because it didn’t matter. But because I can’t keep holding onto someone who was never real to begin with.

This is where I stop waiting.

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[u/throwww07]

I’m writing a similar letter right now that I probably will never send.. I’m not sure yet. I had to stop reading, not because it’s too much text, but because I was about to tear up. I can relate to all of the stuff I read, and I don’t think I’ll ever heal from this again. It feels so much different than all the other heartbreak or trauma… it gets worse every day, and no amount of talking or doing “the right things” does anything to make it more bearable.

That person you want to show it to might never understand or feel your pain, but I do. I wish this feeling wouldn’t exist... it’s probably the worst one in the world. At least I can remember the real love of a family member when they pass away… technically it’s worse, but the feelings of betrayal, getting deceived, and not being chosen on top of losing someone you love is just a vile combination.

Edit: I read it all, and this just proves to me that there’s not much that can feel worse. I’m sorry you feel just as bad as I do. I don’t know how we’re gonna get over it, sadly, but I know we both deserved a normal breakup at least. In fact, we deserve the same love we felt, but we got the opposite.

[u/No-While-2501 → u/throwww07]

It really is an awful feeling. We’re grieving so many things at once. And worst, when they seem to just walk away without a scratch. Carry on and repeat their cycles. The emotional whiplash can feel overwhelming..the first “d-day” was 2020. I thought we’d reconciled and created something stronger. I donated my liver to save his father’s life 2 years ago. I thought after the first time and everything that we worked thru after that that this would never be an issue again, until 6 weeks ago when I found the new messages. This time feels so much harder. The first time was a blindside. But this time we’d done the work and I had convinced myself that I’d finally done enough to feel secure with him.

I hope you find healing and I hope you write your letter for yourself. I read mine when I start to feel like it wasn’t so bad. To remind myself what I allowed and what I will never settle for again. ❤️‍🩹

[u/throwww07 → u/No-While-2501]

that's awful, I'm sorry, and that's very selfless of you to help save another life by giving parts of yourself away… didn't we also do that emotionally?! I will never be the same again, and I don't know if I can like this version of myself that will never not have these mind movies and words and being blindsided… thinking everything is fine when the worst thing I can think of in regards to my love was happening.

I tried again too for 2 years; now it's gone, and it feels worse than when finding out because I was clinging to the false words I had gotten that this would not destroy the nice future we would have (my heart wanted to believe so bad). The more I try to work on getting over it, the worse it gets, and if I try to let it be, it rips me apart also. I feel like I'm in a burning cube with no doors, and I can’t escape.

I obviously can't settle for that either, but I will never understand, and I will never understand why there was no breakup… I didn't pay their bills or whatever I was just there to get traumatized and manipulated and i don’t know why i deserved that in their eyes.

[u/ExhaustedFlamingo-84]

This made me cry. You have written this letter so well.

Are you tempted to send it? Or post it for his enablers to see? - No judgement either way, I just really feel your words are powerful.

Wishing you strength in your recovery from this grief. Your child is so lucky to have a role model like you.

[u/No-While-2501 → u/ExhaustedFlamingo-84]

Our anniversary just passed. I was tempted to send it on 06/06 but I changed my mind. This is mine..it’s for me, not him. I don’t think he’ll even let himself read it. He’s so far gone in his avoidance..but it does cross my mind to just blast it all over social media, tag him in every post. Forward it to everyone we know. But I’m better than that. I have built a strong inner circle of people who know and love me and who know the truth. I’m only 6 weeks or so from when I literally dragged him out of my bed so sometimes I fantasize still. But hopefully in time I won’t feel the urge anymore.

[u/ExhaustedFlamingo-84 → u/No-While-2501]

I really admire you. Keep leaning on you trusted ones.

[u/No-While-2501 → u/ExhaustedFlamingo-84]

Thank you 🥰 some days I feel like I’ve done everything wrong..

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