Did I real­ly mat­ter so lit­tle to you over the last 18 years that you can just throw me aside like this? You talk about how tor­tured you felt and how you wres­tled with God for a year over this deci­sion (though you admit­ted you were nev­er men­tal­ly mar­ried to me). And yet you’re so offend­ed and tak­en aback by my stay­ing at my par­ents’ with the kids, all you can think about is your­self and the life you envi­sioned for your­self mov­ing for­ward, with me keep­ing things as sta­tus quo for you by stay­ing in your home­town, in what was sup­posed to be OUR for­ev­er home, so you could con­tin­ue drop­ping in when­ev­er you felt like see­ing the kids (because real­ly, isn’t that what you made our mar­riage come down to these past 5 years?). 

You act as though this were some kind of mutu­al deci­sion, like we are one of those cou­ples that “just fell out of love, decid­ed we were bet­ter as friends who could only live our most joy­ous, ful­filled lives pos­si­ble sep­a­rate­ly instead of togeth­er, though we will still be fam­i­ly and lov­ing ded­i­cat­ed par­ents.” Where did I get a choice in the mat­ter? Do you tru­ly not under­stand how this has ripped me apart? 

I could­n’t talk to you for a year after you told me you were dat­ing your last col­lege girl­friend, fast­ing for a week to fig­ure out why I was cry­ing and what was going on in my heart, and then stay­ing away to get over you and decide if I could han­dle hav­ing you in my life as a friend, and if I could be a good friend to you. After 18 years of think­ing we were best friends, 12.5 years of being in a covenant rela­tion­ship where I loved you with all of my being and stayed loy­al to you and God despite every­thing, hav­ing two kids togeth­er — how do you not under­stand my need­ing space or dis­tance to process what you blind­sided me with? 

Eigh­teen years. EIGHTEEN YEARS. We just men­tioned that num­ber to the kids two months ago, how almost half my life you’ve been my best friend. (And real­ly, my only friend since we got mar­ried.) And yet even then you knew this is what you had been doing, and how you were choos­ing to pro­ceed.

For that mat­ter, where did I have a voice in our entire mar­riage?

You’ve been hid­ing from me since the begin­ning. Hid­ing a side of your­self you did­n’t think I’d under­stand. A side you could­n’t show me. Even while engaged, you said you’d been advised to keep things from your wife, because she would nev­er under­stand. Who the heck told you that? How good was their mar­riage?

You’re lying to your­self to say you were nev­er phys­i­cal­ly attract­ed to me, that this was more like an arranged mar­riage. I know how you behaved when we were engaged. I know how you behaved lead­ing up to our wed­ding night. Back when I was 106 lbs and a beau­ti­ful, blush­ing bride, I remem­ber how you behaved on our wed­ding night, before our first time. I remem­ber how you behaved when we exchanged the rings our par­ents would­n’t let us exchange dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny. I also remem­ber the look on your face after our first time, and I could­n’t under­stand it. That’s how quick­ly every­thing changed. 

Because when I approached you for the sec­ond time (and it was me who took the ini­tia­tive), that was the first time you pushed me away. You were too tired, but I knew that was­n’t true. What rea­sons did you give your­self after that for no longer want­i­ng to sleep with me? 

All the excus­es you gave me? Exhaust­ed from our trav­el sched­ule on our hon­ey­moon. Headache our first week back from our hon­ey­moon. Sen­si­tiv­i­ty in cer­tain places. And then the regres­sion, like a lit­tle kid who wants to play. And then the lash­ing out and anger. I can’t just come to you expect­ing phys­i­cal inti­ma­cy; you need to be treat­ed a cer­tain way through­out the day. I make you feel like all you are is a penis. And so it con­tin­ued.

I remem­ber the exact night I con­ceived Son. Because I was pray­ing the whole while that it would­n’t be that time, because that expe­ri­ence was not the lov­ing, shar­ing act a child should be con­ceived in. It was you doing your duty. After that, you sup­pos­ed­ly want­ed to prove your prowess, that that one time was all that was need­ed. And it was. By the grace of God, we were preg­nant. And then you said your dad had a talk with you and said we should­n’t have rela­tions while I was preg­nant. That was your rea­son for stay­ing away then. 

And then Son was born, and my post-preg­nan­cy body was­n’t appeal­ing enough for you. Not like my pre-preg­nan­cy 120lb body had been. Or even my pre-wed­ding 106 lb body. From the time we were engaged, you were get­ting onto me about work­ing out. You said it was because you knew I was seden­tary, and that even­tu­al­ly my body would change, and my health would be at risk. But, oh, all the con­ver­sa­tions we had about my weight. 

And by 2011 (Europe trip, I remem­ber the exact moment — black lace lin­gerie), I just gave up. I was still over­weight from the first preg­nan­cy. I was deal­ing with depres­sion, pri­mar­i­ly from you not want­i­ng me, and then from liv­ing the life/routine I had sworn nev­er to do (go to a job I hate, return home to watch TV, go to sleep, and start it all over again). Oth­er fac­tors of my depres­sion — How bad­ly I want­ed to be the one stay­ing at home with Son. How much I hat­ed work­ing in retail, the hours, the angry cus­tomers. I’d come home exhaust­ed, the house was still dirty, there was no food, Son had nev­er been bathed/brushed teeth. I had to wear glass­es again, so that added to my feel­ing unat­trac­tive. And you seemed to see every lit­tle flaw in my appear­ance.

Not just my body. The depres­sion I went into, affect­ed you. But it was caused pri­mar­i­ly by you. Always point­ing out my flaws, not my assets. Then I dis­cov­ered the XXX email. And it was always my over­ac­tive imag­i­na­tion, mak­ing too much out of things. Or, did­n’t I real­ize this is how it is with most cou­ples? Or, don’t I real­ize how good I have it, since you don’t hit me, yell at me, call me names, or throw plates at me? I kept ask­ing for ther­a­py. For you to invest time in our rela­tion­ship, or we would end up emp­ty-nest­ed strangers. But you were a stranger to me all along.

Some­how I con­vinced myself it was you — your issues from child­hood sex­u­al abuse. We had nev­er talked about your pre­vi­ous rela­tion­ships. It was B.C. — Before Christ, and those sins were ancient his­to­ry. Although I assumed the worst (that you had sex with them all) when eval­u­at­ing whether to mar­ry you, for some rea­son after we got mar­ried, it did­n’t click that it was only me you did­n’t want to have sex with. I was just pray­ing and wait­ing for you to get help, get coun­sel­ing, get a group of god­ly men to be account­able with. 

That’s why I thought my prayers had final­ly been answered when you came to me and broke down in Oct. 2014. You said you can’t do this any­more. You need to be around me and the kids. You need help. So we were going to leave our church to find a big­ger church that offered coun­sel­ing. At least, that’s why I thought we were leav­ing. Appar­ent­ly you nev­er want­ed church coun­sel­ing.

You’re leav­ing me pre­sum­ably to get sec­u­lar coun­sel­ing to heal from your abuse issues. And your hope is that you will one day find a woman you can have “that” con­nec­tion with who will help you find sex­u­al healing. 

You poor thing. You don’t under­stand that you have had that woman all along. A woman who has always seen you as God sees you. A woman who saw the best in you, who was will­ing to stand by you no mat­ter what. A woman who did­n’t assume sex was all fire­works from the begin­ning, but an expe­ri­ence that grew as our rela­tion­ship grew. That it was as sacred and holy as it was sen­su­al and pleasurable. 

I am the woman you were to find your heal­ing with. God gave you all you want­ed. You had the phi­los, storge, and even the agape with me. (I did­n’t used to think I had the agape for you, but see­ing how I bleed love from each wound you gave me, appar­ent­ly I did. And see­ing as how even now my heart wants to give to you, and wants you to heal and pros­per and become the man I thought you were all along, I still do.) 

The eros was miss­ing after our wed­ding because of your bro­ken­ness and the illic­it rela­tion­ships your flesh was used to. Your spir­it and soul did­n’t know what to do in a god­ly rela­tion­ship with me. And instead of EVER choos­ing to work on you, work on us, work on it, you avoid­ed inti­ma­cy on every lev­el with me. You nev­er showed me you. You kept your walls, and got upset when I start­ed to put up my own. In your busi­ness, you talk about val­ue propo­si­tion. Where did you add val­ue to me? What did you get dur­ing this mar­riage, and what am I walk­ing away with?

I have only just start­ed the griev­ing process. I have lost my best friend, my only friend. I have lost my hus­band and com­pan­ion, the one I was sup­posed to grow old with. I have lost the fam­i­ly I was build­ing – Dada, Mama, Broth­er, Sis­ter. I have lost the dreams I thought we shared for the busi­ness, for a future build­ing hous­ing our mul­ti­ple busi­ness­es, of future trav­els, future min­istry. Instead, I have been uproot­ed once more because of you. Lost my home, lost my church, lost my job, lost my friends, all over again.