My letter to Ben

Today I read my finished apology letter to my ex-husband that I started in November. I feel profoundly grateful and at peace. I wrote and read the letter with peace as my only motive.

One year ago I could only feel sadness, loss and despair. Now I feel peace and my world is expanding. For the first time, I can now see (truly see) and love the father of my children free from the need or desire that he provide me with anything or do anything for me.

I felt grateful to myself for the sense of peace and authenticity that I was able to maintain throughout the divorce process. I noticed that I did get upset at one point as we were talking afterwards and that I reacted with defensiveness starting from a desire to be heard. I noticed and I stopped and went back to being present. We were able to have a friendly conversation and share joys and hopes for our children with an ease and connection that I had never been able to feel with him before.

I feel that I have helped make a change in our way of talking that opens the door to healing for myself and for our family. I am grateful to myself for my persistence in being healthy.

11/19/2012

Dear Ben,

When we were married I wasn’t able to find or acknowledge very much acceptance within me towards you. In our 22+ years together I don’t believe I was ever fully real with you and I don’t believe that I ever really truly felt that from you. There were times when I came a little bit close like when I watched you ride your bike. Those were rare moments when I did not judge you. I felt love, I saw beauty and I really admired you.

I would like to express what I appreciate about you.

I appreciate your ability to see what is good in others, especially our children.

I appreciate that you manage money well so that you could offer us not only security and stability but also many opportunities like travel, private preschool, hockey, summers at the pool.

I appreciate your gentle nature, your desire to be helpful and your generosity in sharing your time and attention with our boys, and others. I appreciate your loyalty during our marriage.

I appreciate that you did the best you knew how to help me be happy and your willingness to go to counseling with me and try to make our marriage succeed.

I appreciate your patience and tolerance and your impressive ability to not hold onto grudges.

Ben, you have given me many gifts.

First and most important are our 3 lovable, smart and handsome boys, Morgen, Max and Markus.

You also gave me financial security before, during and after our marriage.

For these things I am forever grateful.

I admire you. What I see and admire in you is:

Generosity
Gentleness
Caring
Patience

Ben, during our marriage I did many things that hurt you.

I expected you to be competent in many ways and I held it against you and I was cold and critical of you when you didn’t meet my expectations.

I insinuated many times that you and what you were doing was not good enough and that you should change and I didn't talk to you when you didn’t understand and agree with me.

There were times when I didn’t act like a partner in our marriage like when I made decisions about things that affected both of us without consulting you.

I often ignored your attempts to reach out physically to me and I judged your efforts to be not enough. I talked to other people about our relationship and didn’t care how you felt and I left.

During our marriage I put a lot of pressure on you to change.

I didn't listen to you when you told me that you were content with working from home for yourself and didn't want to go to school. In equal measure, I put pressure on myself to change and pressure on Morgen to change. I was very hard on all of us and I didn't understand when you were apathetic and withdrawn.

When I carried the belief that you and I needed to change, I put a great deal of attention on how we hadn't changed and I constantly pushed myself and you. I focused on what I wanted. I compared us to others.

What I imagine that it cost you is many years of not receiving collaboration and support and not being given the opportunity to feel the joy of me receiving your communication and support.

It cost me the ability to see, experience and support your strengths and to know you. It cost me the opportunities to receive your love and caring. It cost me the experience of my own self-acceptance and the experience of giving unconditional love. It cost me my confidence.

I had a motive for not noticing your unhappiness and for continually pushing for change. My motive was fear. I had fears that I needed to do things right or others would judge me, and not take me seriously. I was afraid of what everyone would think if you went running on Monday nights when our neighbors were having family home evening. And I was afraid that our boys would feel the isolation and pain that I felt in my life.

By extension, I believed you needed to do things right or I would be judged by others. And I see that when I believed you weren't doing it right, I judged, rejected, and left you in my mind and did not take you seriously. I equated your worth with what you did and how you did it.

I put you out of my heart. I equated my worth with what I did and how I did it. I put me out of my heart. I feel like this cost you my love, support, peace, companionship and connection. It also cost me my love, contentment, peace, support, companionship and connection both to myself and to you.

I experienced it as causing separation, heaviness and stress in our family.

I am sorry that I didn't listen to you and that I put unachievable expectations on you and blamed you when you did not meet my expectations.

For the many times and the many years that I treated you unkindly I am sincerely sorry. If there are things that I did that hurt you and that you would like me to know about or acknowledge I am ready to listen and I would like to hear them.

I am profoundly sorry for the stress I have caused you and our boys and am willing to do what ever I can to make it better.

Please tell me. I am committed to living my life differently than I did in the past. The ways that I have decided to do this are:

1. To notice when I have the thought that someone else, especially those closest to me like our boys, should do or be in a particular way and then look at how I can be or do it myself. My goal is to never tell another person what they should be or do or how they should think or act and if I do to notice and make amends as quickly as possible.

2. Another way is to stop blaming anyone or anything for how I feel or experience life.

3. Also, when I notice that someone has contributed toward my well being that I will acknowledge them by telling them in person or in a note as soon as possible.

If you ever feel that I am blaming you, accusing you or criticizing you I ask that you point it out to me because I am sincerely working on not seeing you, or anyone for that matter, as my opponent or enemy.

I am grateful to you. I am grateful that you are the father of my children, they love you and I do too.

Love,

B

P.S. After writing this letter I loved how it helped me see that I am what I believe another is. It revealed to me how my actions are exactly what I dislike about another.

I hope that this letter helps people who are supposedly suffering in a relationship see themselves as they truly are. It looks like it’s a new beginning for me and I’m sure there is more to be learned.