Goodbye Letter to Peter Pt. 2

Continued from previous.

 

When you left, you said you still loved me. I didn’t understand how you could love me and still leave; I still don’t. I think maybe you said it to be kind, because that’s more like you. But after that first day of weeping while you and your family moved your things out, I couldn’t bear to be there for the second day. You said it was because I didn’t want to see you, but that’s not why—I knew that if I was there, I wouldn’t be able to control myself. I wouldn’t have been able to keep from clinging to you in front of everybody, begging you not to go with snot running down my face, weeping the whole time, trying to embrace you as you pushed me away. I thought you wanted that even less than I did, so I had to find somewhere else to be. I spent the whole night thinking about how you’d told me, the night before, that you still loved me, and trying to understand.

I clung to the idea that you still loved me because you said that you did, in spite of your actions. To understand why, you have to go all the way back to the beginning. You told me you loved me on 28 March 2002. I don’t think you knew how happy you’d made me. I felt special, I felt magical, I loved you too, even though it took days to sink in. I could hardly believe it, because I loved you and I didn’t anyone would ever know me and love me, let alone someone so smart and funny and kind. Then you told me that maybe you’d been mistaken. I understand that that was a huge emotional crisis for you, but it was a crisis for me, too, and it shook my initial belief. But you were so loving over the years, and my belief just got stronger. You went to Wendy’s to get me a frosty one hot summer night when I Was sick. You’d hold me and wake me from nightmares about Mike. You wrapped yourself around me at the bus stop so I would be warmer. You stayed up all night to console me over breaking up with Dan. You did so much Mage that you were sick of doing it just because it delighted me so much. You made me tea, martinis, food you didn’t care for for dinner because I loved it. You saw me naked when I weighed over 250 pounds and you told me I was beautiful. You understood when I couldn’t have sex on our wedding night. You helped me clean up my own feces after surgery because I couldn’t move to do it myself. You spent night and day by my hospital bed because I was so scared. You froze cranberries so I could have them year-round. You took me to the ER because I couldn’t hear out of one ear. You drove to Canada to get me medicine. You crowded into a twin bed so we could sleep together. You put up with my temper flares and nasty sarcasm. You kept my spot in the bed warm. You made Grumpy talk to me. You went with me to doctor’s appointments. You put up with my alcohol problem. You endured being in the middle with me and your mom without understanding why there was even a middle to be in. You adopted kittens. You massaged my back until your hands hurt as much as my back did. You saw me naked after surgery, when gross folds of flesh hung off my body, and you still said I was beautiful. You told me loved me every single day. You tucked me in. You brought Giraffe of a Function home from Boston. You brought cranberries to gaming club. You installed the AC unit in the living room before you moved out. I believed that you knew me and still somehow, miraculously, loved me anyway. So I still believed you, even when you left.

I don’t understand why you did most of the things you did next. Only you know, if you even do.

You closed my checking account and waited to tell me until the banks were all closed for the weekend. Fortunately, I didn’t need cash, and that didn’t physically or materially hurt me, but it was more stress and more control when I was already about to snap. When we agreed that I would use the PNC checking and you would use the Dollar Bank checking and we would both just leave the Dollar Bank savings alone, I believed you. I didn’t even check up on you. I don’t understand why you went out of your way to close that account in a way that made it hard for me to straighten things out, but I have a guess. Were you checking up on me? Maybe it was a coincidence, but that account was closed right after I sent an electronic check to my lawyer for the first time. And then you said that you closed our savings account to keep me from taking all the money, but I never would have done anything like that. I think you did it to hold that money hostage to make me agree to a divorce more quickly. That’s what it seemed like at the time, because I had to borrow money from my parents to pay for the move out of the apartment.

You know, I didn’t want to see the lawyer, but my parents badgered me into going just to talk to him. He told me what I was entitled to under the law, but I insisted that I didn’t want to sue you for support, and I was okay with the division of property you proposed, but I couldn’t give him any real information because you took all of the important records with you when you left. Even so, I refused to hire him and sue you. The check that I sent was just a consultation fee. It bounced, of course, because of what you did with the account. I suppose you think I was just trying to drag things out, but I was being honest when I said I only wanted to delay the official divorce because I was worried that I couldn’t find a job with insurance in time. I guess you were mad because you thought I was hiring a lawyer to sue you. But I wasn’t. I refused to even make a follow-up appointment. It wasn’t for weeks and weeks that that changed, and it only changed because it was the only way I could protect myself. I’d quit my job for you and I couldn’t find a new one. You took all of our money and put it where I couldn’t get it. At the time, I felt that suing you for support was my last resort, and I felt bad about it.

I understood why you wouldn’t always take my calls or answer my messages; I knew you were trying to make a clean break, right? But I was so scared in that apartment all by myself. I was so heartbroken, falling to pieces, and I wanted to move out of that apartment and let you stay there, but you left and I had no choice. And the things you did made me feel unsafe. You wouldn’t tell me where you were living, but you insisted on keeping the key to where I was living and retaining the right to come in whenever you wanted for any reason. I swear to God that I never intentionally locked you out of the apartment. I gave you one of my Grumpy Bears because of my own attachment to stuffed animals, which I can’t really explain and I don’t think anyone else understands. I treasured him, so I gave him to you as sort of a talisman, like he would keep you safe and somehow send my love to you. You promised to give him back and not throw him away if you didn’t want to keep him. And I thought you’d want some mementos of the ten years we spent together, so I made you take some pictures and the bride-kitty. I swear I wasn’t trying to use your diploma and mementos to blackmail you into giving me the Grumpy back; I really was willing to meet you and giv

e you the things you left there. I only wanted the Grumpy back if you didn’t want him anymore. When I found Grumpy and bride-kitty in the church rummage sale, it felt like you threw them in the trash, and threw me in the trash, just like garbage. I guess maybe you were getting back at me, because you never understood—no one has ever understood—how I feel about stuffed animals, that they’re real things with feelings. And then you threatened to come take my cats—you’re still doing that. It’s just sadistic. Can you even give me another reason for something like that?

I didn’t let your things be thrown away on purpose. I didn’t even know about it until you told me. I told the landlady when I was leaving and that you would let her know when you were moved out. I knew she meant to rent the apartment, but not that she was going to be so criminal. Even though you accused me of doing it on purpose, I think maybe you know that I didn’t. I would never do something like that to you, even after everything else that happened that summer. I tried to fight for some compensation, but without your cooperation, I couldn’t get anything done.

By then, of course, I was in Memphis. I hate it here. My mom resents me being here and they treat me like a child. I have no privacy. I can’t find a job. I hate living with my parents; my mom resents having me here and I’m so lonely. I’d take any job I could get, but I can’t find one—I really can’t! I’ve applied for everything from teaching to being a bank teller to working at Kroger, but either they’re not hiring or I’m not qualified or I’m too qualified, and I can’t even get part-time crap. Meanwhile, I take expensive medication just to function, and I have hospital and doctor bills, and dental problems that need to be fixed. You made my lawyer go through your lawyer just to get my insurance cards and information. But you know why else I don’t have a job? Because, last February, we agreed that we were moving for your job and I cut all of my connections in Pittsburgh. That’s why you’re paying spousal support: you had me quit my job and abandon all of my future prospects and then you left me in an expensive apartment that I hated with no way to do ANYTHING about it.

Here’s what I don’t understand, and I don’t expect you to answer me, but maybe being honest with yourself about this will help you see what you’ve become. Last February, we agreed that we were moving for your job and I cut all of my connections in Pittsburgh. Why? What happened in February? You’re still in Pittsburgh, still working for Russ. Were you trying to tear my life apart? Why would you do that? How are you still in Pittsburgh, when one of the only things I thought we clearly communicated was that we had to leave Pittsburgh?

Of course, I didn’t know, then, that you weren’t leaving your job after all. I knew very little about what you were up to, because I only heard from you through our lawyers. I was grateful when my lawyer told me that you’d agreed to let me participate at the support hearing via telephone. I didn’t know how I could get to Pittsburgh and back, and I knew I’d break down and sob right there in the courtroom the moment I saw you. So then you wait until literally two days before the hearing and have your lawyer make an offer for very limited support and access to the money you were hiding away in exchange for a quick divorce—along with a threat to rescind the agreement about me not appearing if I didn’t accept.

My lawyer was furious. He was ready to fly me out there, put me up in his house, and do everything he had to to get me to that hearing. My parents were angry, too. They can all do math, and the amount of support proposed was pitiful compared to what they knew I’d be awarded at the hearing. But it was my call to make, and I made the call to accept the offer. I agreed to your deal. Do you know why? Because I loved you and I realized when my lawyer explained what you were trying to do that you not only didn’t love me, but that you hated me. I didn’t understand why, but that was the end of it. The next day, I was at Lakeside. I think this is your first time finding out about the timing of my suicide attempt. I’m not trying to hurt you with it, because I know you never thought I’d kill myself. You had no way of knowing and you couldn’t have stopped me. And, as far as I was concerned, I was about to be dead, and you wouldn’t be paying any support.

But then… you reneged. My lawyer thinks that even your lawyer was furious about that. Why did ou do that? Why did you offer a proposal that was essentially blackmail, succeed in getting me to agree with it, and then try to completely screw me over? This is where I can’t even imagine your justification. Whatever it was, if you can let yourself believe anything else I’ve written tonight, surely you can see why it’s so important to me that you understand what you’re doing to yourself. You did something that was nothing but evil—just plain meanness piled on top of everything else. And it’s also when you lost, because they put me in Lakeside and cut me out of the loop. My lawyer was furious—you made both of our lawyers look like idiots in that court—and he was all for stringing you along for as long as possible and taking as much support money as he could get. He only had to convince my parents, who were shocked and outraged by your behavior over the summer. My psychiatrist had to be consulted before I was allowed to be told about any of this—it was at least a week after the continuance was granted that I heard about it, and then he had to give his permission before I could see or sign any legal documents. That’s how my parents got the power to make all of the decisions about support and everything else in the divorce. You did something underhanded and dishonest and the only person it came back to hurt is you. Not only are you paying way more in support, but you’re responsible for half of my medical expenses. Between Lakeside, psychiatrists, and root canals, we’re talking about thousands and thousands of dollars. If you hadn’t reneged on your fake agreement, that part never would have come up.

Thousands, literally thousands of dollars in medical bills. I’m truly sorry about this, not only because I have to pay half, too, but because I think that your desperation to hold onto as much money as possible has left both of us both totally broke. Between my no job, your paying support, the cruddy insurance that leads to higher medical bills that you have to pay half of, and the lawyers’ fees, we both wind up with just about nothing. Slightly different nothings, maybe; you lost your integrity, I broke my heart.

You put yourself in such a horrible position, and for what? Money? Just money? Now that I don’t have any and have to rely on charity to have a place to live, it’s harder to think of it like that, but filthy lucre compared to what you did to your soul to convince yourself to go down this path… How did you turn into this?

You seem obsessed with money. You always have been, to an extent, but now it’s a real problem for you. Maybe this is a sign from God, Peter, just like me being forced to live through suicide was. Maybe this is meant as a constant reminder to you, like that voice suggesting ways to kill myself is for me. We both have these things that we haveto conquer solely because we each made our own horrible decisions. I know it was wrong to try to take my own life. But I’m afraid that you don’t know that the things you’ve been doing have been wrong, and I’m afraid that you won’t be able to stop because you don’t think you need to. But you do. Your family and friends and I love you. We don’t want to see you turn into a bitter, sadistic monster over all of this.

I don’t understand what game you’re playing now, because you keep saying things that are obviously not true and also obviously intended to hurt or manipulate me. Usually, they hurt; usually, the manipulation is incredibly transparent and ineffective. At one point, you told me that I was “failing” every “test” you set up for me. I don’t think that was true when you said it, but I think it sounded reasonable to you, and that’s a problem.

You can’t do that to people. If you want someone to meet your desires or even just your expectations, you have to tell them what those things are. I have a feeling that I’ve been failing secret tests for ten years without ever knowing I was being graded. Things would have gone better if I had known what really mattered to you—if you had told me—if you had asked me for what you wanted, and not just once in ten years and then silence ever-after. You might have gotten what you wanted. You might have it now.

If I were to receive a letter like this, I imagine that I would feel stricken by regret at the misunderstandings that led up to our failed marriage. I don’t know how you’re going to feel when you read it, and you don’t need to tell me, but you need to make sure that the next girl you say “I love you” to will be able to believe that you mean it. Don’t let her think that you love her when you’re really thinking about divorcing her. Talk to her about what you want. If getting my masters and having a baby three years ago would have been the difference between this nightmare and me still having you, all you had to do was say so. I love you, Peter, whoever you are or were or will become. I think this will be the last time I say it, because you don’t need to hear it from me and I have to learn how to stop saying it. But I hope you keep hearing it, sincerely and often, and I hope you have the family you’ve always wanted. And I dare to hope that, someday, you can think of me with something resembling fondness or even affection. I spent ten years of my life believing that your arms were the safest place in the world. Now I have nothing and no one and no sense of safety or even sanity, and I don’t know that I ever will again. But I like to think that our love was real for both of us, at least for a while, and all love is precious.

If you really want to remarry before the two years is over, our lawyers can talk about it. This isn’t an invitation to put conditions on what I will agree to if I’m telling you the truth; I already told you that I am, and I’m not going through another round of you attempting to bargain for “your” money using your belief in my words as collateral. I just want you to be happy, and I want her to be happy, and maybe I can be a little happy knowing that someone got the love I wanted.

I’m not waiting for a reply from you, and I won’t read one if you try to send it, so please try not to react defensively. Maybe give Sasha a call and talk to him about some of this. You could try reflecting on what you’ve done over the past nine months and what it means. Reflect on what you’ve done with the past ten years of our lives. I sincerely hope that the next ten will be better for you. Take care of yourself.

Goodbye, Peter. This will be the last time I write to you. It’s time for me to let you go.

Beth

Let it die and get out of my mind
We don’t see eye to eye
Or hear ear to ear

The saddest part of a broken heart
Isn’t the ending so much as the start
The tragedy starts from the very first spark
Losing your mind for the sake of your heart

His response follows in the next entry.