Thanks for checking on us last summer. I went by your old place to see if you were OK when the pandemic started a few months before that, but you had just moved out.
I regret how I left things... I’m not looking to “reconnect”. I'm just trying to get closure.
When I sent you those last bombshell texts, my divorce had just been finalized… After you said I was a free man it hit me like a ton of bricks – I only felt "free" of friends and love. Leading up to the divorce, I had to take a hard look at why I waited so long. I re-read emails and other stuff going back several years and saw that I was preparing to divorce her back then. She had repeatedly neglected our kid due to her drug abuse and refused to go to therapy with me. So, why didn’t we split sooner? The sad truth was buried in the nearly 10,000 messages you and I sent each-other over the years:
I stayed married while we fell deeper into Hell because it was the only way I'd have access to my wife's narcs that you needed to help you cope with your life – and the only way I believed you'd let me be a part of it.
I wrongly blamed myself for my wife going downhill. I felt like a failure for being unable to fix her problems that I only realized later I didn't cause. I thought maybe if I had been different and better I could've "saved" her. Seeing you as my second chance manifested and magnified my mistakes. I lied to myself that I was helping you by giving you enough narcs every week so you wouldn’t have to deal with those who degraded you. You told me that I saved you by doing this... But you continued your arrangements with them, anyhow. One time, you even bragged about what you got from one of your “sugar daddies” and casually told me the nasty things he made you do. You seemed so cold about how this was like a knife in my heart.
I had to face that what I sacrificed and the pain I allowed (and caused) to happen was for nothing. I wasted time that cost more than I could ever repay. If I had proceeded with the divorce years before when I planned, my ex would've left to another state where the doctors wouldn't have prescribed her those pills – especially without me there to hold and dispense them. Even if she still had the strokes, at least she would've been far away from our daughter when they happened. Witnessing them and experiencing her mom's continued neglect, ODs, hospitalizations and her dad’s descent stole her childhood.
Delaying the divorce and giving you drugs were my terrible choices. You made some very bad ones, too...
You took advantage of me at the lowest point of my life. You said you loved me, but now I see you were only there for me a handful of times without me providing pills. When I broke down about how much our "relationship" was hurting me, you'd go dark or twist it around and add to the mountain of guilt you knew was crushing me and keeping me trapped in a toxic marriage. Later, you said you wanted me to be happy and have someone, but the dynamic between us that you chose for years depended on my insecurity and isolation – being stuck in Hell. That left deep scars I can’t hide behind a mask...
Remember when I patched up one of your cuts, gave you meds and pushed your hand away when you tried to touch me? I wasn’t “closed off”… I cared about you. I loved you and wanted you for yourself – not a quid pro quo. I didn’t use you like the others. I tried to be a real friend and show you that you were worth more than that. I felt worthless when you kept me at arm’s length to reach out for more drugs. You took pieces from afar as I fell apart...
Despite all this, I don’t hate you. I still want to believe that the good person I saw in you was real. Contacting me again after my last texts must’ve been hard. I’m writing this to help a person who seems capable of caring, not trying to hurt someone who isn’t. You have already hurt yourself more than anyone else ever could. If you haven’t already, please try to get clean and away from the users. Sometimes, the best way to make amends is changing for the better. I hope this helps you do that:
I am truly sorry I enabled you and for being just another transactional relationship in your life. Selfishly seeking redemption through you for something that wasn't my fault ended up leading me to damnation for what was. I still have miles to go before I can forgive myself for that, but I forgive you now for hurting me and not letting me go when I begged you to. We were both damaged and desperate.