Dear... The Parents Of My Ex-husband
I didn't say goodbye, and I apologise for that. I didn't give you my side of the story, and I didn't reach out at all. I felt like I owed it to Andy to allow him to have his parents by his side during all of this without them knowing...
Now everything is done and dusted, I have to get it off my chest. I have to let you know. I have to let you know because I don't know what he's told you about it...
I asked Andy to leave because he was not the person I thought I had married.
On our honeymoon, I found text messages. Text message conversations with two different women. I knew about the women, because they would message him at all hours of the night, but he always said that he was just being a good friend to them because they were going through a rough time.
I never snooped on him. I chose to trust him.
I shouldn't have.
They didn't know about me. He was seeing both of them while we were in a long distance relationship. The moment I would fly back to Brisbane, sad about leaving him, he would message one of them — whoever was free — and go over to their place with a bottle of wine...
When he moved to Brisbane he told them that he was moving up here for mental health reasons. He told them he was moving in with his cousin. He told them that he was buying a boat — with his cousin. He told them about this 'cool ridgeback' in the house that he's renting. He told them that he loved them. He told them that he had to cool it off when he moved up here, but would still be up for sex when he came back to Canberra to visit.
When I found this out he denied it. I offered to read the messages together and he went back to his story that he was too scared to break it off with them because they were so emotionally fragile and he didn't want them to hurt themselves. He was doing it for them...
I chose to believe him. I was in shock.
For the next 2.5 years he tried to convince me that I was the lucky one because he eventually chose me. He tried to convince me that it was 'no big deal'. He rolled his eyes each time that I felt sad and tried to express it to him. I asked him to go to counselling with me, several times, to help overcome this breach of trust... he refused each time.
He lied so often, about nothing and about everything. I couldn't trust him about where he was and who he was with. When I would catch him out on the lie he would turn it back onto me. He would tell me that he was lying because he was afraid of telling me the truth... he was depressed, apparently, and that gave him licence to lie.
As I started to travel more, and the lies kept accruing, I detached myself from him to protect myself. He would regularly not answer the phone when I would call him after my day of work... he would regularly not answer the phone first thing in the morning... and when he'd call back — he'd be driving.
Not to mention the fact that I was turning into his mother. He was absolutely incapable of being an adult, and I had to plead with him to be responsible with his life. It's like I was living with an entitled child who would lie to get his way, and when he would get caught out, he would manipulate. Or try to. Each night he'd get home and play on his computer until well after midnight each night... We slept in separate rooms because he refused to wear his c-pap that I spent thousands of dollars for him to get.
He offered to leave one day and I said yes. I asked him to leave.
He didn't find a place so I moved him downstairs. I bought him new kitchen stuff, a desk and chair. I fitted out the studio so he could live away from me.
One night when I was out he went through my rubbish. He found I had been to the doctor to get back onto the pill. You know Fran and Steve? Steve has Amelia because of a post-break-up-fling between Steve and his ex. I didn't want to risk being in that situation. I went back on the pill to protect myself in case I made a stupid mistake.
But he confronted me about what he found *in my rubbish bin*. He claimed he was trying to clean up upstairs for me. He was living downstairs. He was not living upstairs. He had not even done any cleaning to cover his tracks.
I had to scream at him to leave for good.
He moved his stuff out 6 months later after I had boxed all of his stuff up. I asked him several times to remove it, to no avail. I threatened to throw it out.
He came and pleaded with me to get back together.
All the while he had Jessica waiting for him at home. I wonder if she knew what he was asking of me.
I told him he hadn't learnt anything. He didn't know what I meant so I explained that he was doing to Jessica exactly what he did to me so many years ago.
He said marriage was more important. I told him that if he makes a commitment to someone, no matter what that commitment is, that it is the most important thing. He hadn't learnt a thing.
With regard to Jessica, he told me he 'did what he needed to do to get by'... what a horrid way to speak of a woman, let alone any human being.
Even when I gave him the divorce papers he asked for me to reconsider.
I wonder if Jessica knew he was asking that...
He didn't sign the papers. I had to serve them.
He then had the hide to suggest that he was wronged because I left with 'the house, car and dog, and he left with nothing'.
He didn't contribute to the mortgage — at all. He didn't pay any of my bills. He didn't pay for any holidays, or anything to do with Lottie. It was all on me.
He spent his money on lunches with his work friends, warhammer barbies and PC games. He couldn't even pay his own insurances, and I was paying that for him... I mean my god — he didn't contribute to a thing and then thinks that I wronged him by leaving with the assets that I owned MYSELF.
So whatever story he has spun to you, to his friends, to Jessica — I confidently assume that it isn't this one.
I have spent the last 4.5 years of my life crying over the loss of a marriage that I had so much hope for. I gave him my world, my love and energy, my hope, my money... and my time. I gave him my time. He gave me uncertainty in myself. He gave me a fear of speaking up when I felt sad. He gave me an inherent mistrust of men, of people. He gave me a feeling of worthlessness that still haunts me late at night... where I sob until my whole body aches. He gave me a great distance between myself and my loved ones for fear of getting hurt. He gave me a constant and dull fear of intimacy.
This is your son. This is what he did to me.