Dear Abusive Spouse

Dear Abusive Spouse,

I am writing you this letter to let you know that your days of tyranny and terror are over. Your cruel dictatorship has been recognized and I am sending troops in to dismantle your reign of terror... Using only your anger and time...you have managed to spin a lover into an enemy. 

 

You refused to let go within yourself and allow yourself to love freely and instead, you stood stern and confident in your defensive position. For what reasons I can't say. To bury your pain? To protect yourself? To have control over me? You would not allow yourself to be 100% vulnerable with me 100% of the time.

Instead you attack me when I'm vulnerable. Why do you do this, love? Is it so you can always feel superior and untouchable? Is it because you are actually afraid of being hurt? Is it because you think if you tear me down as low as possible you will never be made to feel a pain like this inflicted by me? Your heart just can't believe that anyone could love you, so it attacks anyone who tries to. I'm feeling so defeated, love, I'm feeling so cheated, and mistreated, love. Your opposition leaves me unable to be alone with you fully, to feel safe with you, to trust you, to be with you and to fully surrender in your arms the way I wish to. 

 

Your anger is taking the best from you! The best of all love could be... Everything you'd hoped for, is this the result you imagined? Please tell me it is not because I don't believe anyone could possibly hate themselves enough to do this to their own life. 

 

Why have you not slayed the dragon and learned to manage this anger, this beast inside of you? You are bigger than this, why do you let it come and abuse me? 

 

Love of my life, I needed a hero, a gentleman, ‘a sweep you off your feet’, ‘so don't make any plans’ kind of guy, a kiss you so passionately your face hurts and hold you so tight your heart bursts kind of guy. My heart has already traveled its long road of scars and hurts prior to meeting you. I thought I'd made my way to where I'd hoped to go, but it now seems I'm at a dead end and it's just me and bad emotions out here. 

 

I feel as though I've woken from a dream and am now aware of how you have been treating me when my back was turned. I went inside myself... I created a place were I didn't have to fight you and I didn't have to feel the things you said and the hurts you inflicted. I cut my emotion off entirely, I barely allowed myself to feel anything.

 

Such a bleak, stark existence if your ask me, but it was absolutely necessary to survive this. I didn't know if I'd ever come back again when I left. I packed an emotion bag and said goodbye to life, I can't feel this anymore or I shall not survive. I put myself into a deep trance-like state and when I emerged I was a robot...The only things I knew were how to love you and be subordinate. In me and unannounced to me my former self still lay dormant. Still and ever so consistently, manifesting in darkest parts of my being, forged out of the rigid harshness, chiseled in the cold and icy caverns of my soul... a warrior began to grow... as I lay in my slumber... drop by drop your painful words fell upon my heart until through the awful grace of god came wisdom.  

This criticism and ridicule shuts me down and takes me to a child-like state of insecurities and sadness. In this place I feel massive stress and anxiety taking over my being; I feel an unstoppable sadness, loneliness.

 

I am misunderstood, no one loves me, I am unlovable... this is what you have spoken to my heart in exchange for feelings and emotions of love. Now that my eyes are open, I feel I can't go on like this. It seems impossible to function as a peaceful, relaxed, and loving person around so much hostility. This is also affecting my ability to be a good mother. I look at my son and I feel sad and depressed; my eyes begin welling up. I know what it is, it's the guilt I feel everyday knowing our child is subject to hostility by being around us.

I live with the absolute feeling of horror and dread that our child will develop into an anxious, nervous, depressed, lost, or stressful person like I did. Or an angry person like you did. This is where I decided to draw the line. I have to wake up and fill my full potential because if I fail to take the initiative, I would not do everything I could do in this life to give my son the best life I possibly could. 

That starts here, that starts now, that starts today, and it starts with me saying no longer will I allow you to treat me poorly because I am worth more than that. I am a ten, a triple threat, beautiful, intelligent, witty, funny, sarcastic, creative, artistic, visionary, epic and many people search their whole lives through and never find someone this honest, genuine and true. I am a treasure and I can no longer allow you to dull my shine and bury it with your distorted reality of how you see me.

 

I never meant for my son to experience the indecency of humans, to have to experience your hostility in the air. He is young now and this in why I must put my foot down at this point. I cannot allow this to continue any further, love. The way you speak to me puts me in a place of overwhelming anxiety and depression. 

 

I am stuck in my head trying to solve problems I have no business getting into... those problems are yours so I am seeking answers that will never do me any good. I lose my focus and my patience easily now. I'm unable to deal with small stressful things that happen in my every day life as a normal person would due to and in addition to the extreme stress you have caused me by continuing to berate me and put me down. I didn't want it to come to this, I didn't want to have to become something bigger than I am to face this giant, this anger, but this is where all of this is taking me because I just can't take it anymore. 

 

I carved into my very own flesh... and it slowly emerged out the deep dwelling despair and sadness in me... a warrior chomping at the bit to run into battle for one last stand. It was wrong of you to make me stand up to you. I am tiny and delicate, you are a big brute. If you wonder, love, how I became what I am... this is what anger has spun me into. I had to let this pain beat me into someone stronger, over and over and over again until I could face you with my complete truth because I know how difficult it is for you to take criticism. 

Needing a protector, I fell at your feet, vulnerable and weak and I felt like you looked at me as if I were less than human. You kicked me while I was down, time after time and left me to die in your rejection. You steam-rolled my hopes for love and you made me feel unwanted with all of your control and apprehension.

 

I lay awake at night just feeling entirely alone. It is only when I look at my son that I feel the strength to go on. This is all of the accumulative damage that your anger has done. This is the very reason I refuse to sit. I stand tall and strong and demand that your anger be dismantled and dissolved or I've had it. I'm gone. 

Now, today, and for all days to follow I will never allow another person to abuse me again. I make this commitment because I love you, I love myself, and I love our son. I accept that you may not be able to change, that this anger may just be so deeply rooted into who you are that it would be impossible to burn that tree for it would just keep rising from those ashes and I promise myself that if that is the case I will be strong enough to leave. I will run hard and fast not from you but rather towards

the happiness that I and my child deserve.

 I didn't want it to be like this. I just wanted to stay at home with my child and live a normal life, but it seems I have no other choice but to be bigger than myself or you will always continue to hurt me because you know I have no defence to this. 

If you think I'm doing this to punish you, spouse, please think again. It is painful for me to lay in bed empty and alone knowing I cannot come to you because if I cave I will surely be allowing your anger to continue to have it's way with me. I must be strong in my conviction. This line is not drawn in sand, it's in stone. The line demands that either you must change or I must change, or both, but things can no longer remain the same. We cannot have a healthy, happy relationship this way because your anger is in the way. 

Today is not like yesterday, and tomorrow will be different forever - Tony Robbins

For my will is as strong as yours, my kingdom as great... you have no power over me - The Labyrinth

AESCHYLUS IN RFK’s SPEECH:

In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.

Sincerely,

Your other half