No More Mouse

Here's an email I sent to my wife. It should be interesting for people to see the angry side of me.

[her name],

I'm sorry you're so bent out of shape and angry at the world (and me in particular), but at the end of the day, it is your own doing.

With respect to the separation agreement, and specifying a deadline to exchange belongings, you should know that I have already allowed you to take more than you are legally entitled to. Legally, what you did qualifies as abandonment, which means you get the clothes on your back, and nothing more. Furthermore, the courts in this part of the country tend to frown on it. If you think about it, I made it VERY clear I didn't want you to go, I asked you to stay, I asked you to come back, and I begged you to go to counseling. You abandoned me and the kids, and essentially just left us to fend for ourselves.

At perhaps the worst point in my life, you opted to make things easy on yourself, and simply threw in the towel. The true test of a person's character is what they do when the going is difficult -- not when things are easy.

On the college thing: YES, I put you through college. When I met you, you were a high school dropout with not many options. I encouraged you to push yourself, and lent support -- financial, emotional, and logistical. I even helped you select a career field in which you could be successful and well-compensated.

First, I paid every penny for you to get your Associates Degree while you went to school and didn't work. It was my understanding that we were going to be together to enjoy the fruits of both our labor. Then I helped while you finished your Bachelors degree, taught you about the career field, gave you contacts, and helped you get your first job.

And just in case you're feeling justified, you should know that you hurt me worse than what [other ex's] did COMBINED. After you decided to make it easy on yourself (and ONLY yourself), you played cat and mouse with me, ostensibly as an act of "kindness". Well, you know what? It wasn't kind; it was cruel.

Nobody likes a flake, and that is what you have become. You don't return phone calls, you don't respond to emails, and you let people who genuinely care needlessly worry about you. It's not just me -- I'm merely the only one with nothing to lose, and therefore free to tell it how it is. If you don't stop this destructive behavior, you're going to find yourself terribly alone.

Good luck -- I think you'll need it more than I will.

[my real name]

Sometimes, it feels good to not be the "nice guy" for a change. At the end of the day, I have feelings too, and I also have worth. I'll never again let anyone treat me otherwise. I'm going to take the advice I gave to my kids.