He claimed he deserved "better treatment/more affection".

A year ago tomorrow, I had a breakdown as I ran into difficulties at work with my name change and was being told I wouldn't have the capabilities to telework while the process was happening which would likely be quite a few weeks.  I was also trying to figure out how to vote with my voter registration in my old name (and being too late to update voter registration for the presidential election) and having already started the name change process.  All the ways the burden of the divorce was falling unfairly on me were weighing me down to the point of collapse.  I didn't understand how he could create so much damage and escape seemingly unharmed.

This was two days after we sat down in a conference room at our apartment complex to close out accounts and split our remaining assets now that the divorce was final.  He was so cold and lacking any emotion at that meeting.  Afterwards I remember commenting to myself that I suspect he treated the taxpayers he audited with more warmth than he treated me that day.  He gave more consideration to strangers on the street than he did to me at that point.

In my moment of weakness and against my better judgment, I texted him.  I can still picture myself in my office with tears flowing down my cheeks as I typed into my phone.  This was our text exchange.

Me:

Do you have any clue how much of a nightmare everything associated with this divorce has been for me? Do you have any idea how much your dishonesty has cost me? Do you even care? The latest is that I will not be able to telework while I wait for a new PIV. I’m also trying to figure out how to still be able to vote in the name of my voter registration as I am in the middle of changing my name back.

The worst part is that I still don’t understand what happened and why you did this and you clearly have no interest at all in trying to figure out or articulate the why to help me find any closure. To leave a spouse after two decades with that much confusion is really cruel.

His response:

Why I decided to leave is like I have said before, I was not happy, I couldn’t see us working on things enough to get there, I feel like I deserve better treatment/more affection and I let resentment build up for so long past the point of return (which I regret). I am very sorry for all the difficulties.

Me:

Just think about how little that explanation would make sense to your spouse after not speaking up for 19 years. Just think about how it feels to be blamed for something you weren’t aware of (and I’m still not aware of). And based on the very few examples you have given, be blamed for your reaction to the other person’s poor behavior without any self-reflection on their part. Think about how that would completely shatter your sense of reality and ability to trust. Maybe if you could actually self-reflect on that you would realize how little closure your explanation brings and how many gaps there clearly are in that explanation.

You don’t need to respond any further. Clearly you still aren’t able or willing to have an honest conversation that would bring a little integrity to how this is all ending. I don’t even know why I tried once more. I guess I keep hoping I wasn’t so wrong about you and a glimpse of the man I once thought you were would come through.

I wrote in my blog on that day, "My text this morning accomplished nothing except further rile me up."  I laugh today at the truth of that!

Besides a few logistical texts and one meeting at the courthouse to sign over our titles to each other, we had no other contact after that.  So this is the last explanation I got.

His word that he deserves "better treatment/more affection" have repeated in my mind ever since because they never made sense to me.  It's as if that text is burned in my mind.  That is the only time he ever accused me of not being affectionate enough and it felt so hypocritical as so often he pushed away any attempts I made to be affectionate and he was rarely affectionate with me.  And I had no clue what he meant by better treatment but I knew the way he was ending it was horrible treatment of me.  So for someone who believed he deserved better, he was being pretty hypocritical.

It was also the closest I ever got to an apology from him.  And no, it's not actually an apology.  I also didn't believe he meant it.  From the first moment I read that text, it sounded like him just telling me what he thought I wanted to hear.  It felt so incredibly empty.

So why am I back here, stuck in this moment today?  Sometimes I think my body remembers these anniversaries.  I've been in a funk ever since yesterday.

My social media memory yesterday was walking the labyrinth in my city a year ago to get myself in the right headspace to have that meeting with him.  I wrote a poem that compared the walk through the labyrinth to the rhythms of what I was facing - the moments of insecurity as I navigated tight turns, the moments of confidence when I picked up the pace around a gentle curve, the understanding of the overhead view of it all mixed with the uncertainty of the moment by moment view, and the concentration required to just keep putting one foot in front of the other.  I wanted to go back and re-walk the labyrinth yesterday after church but the rain combined with the cooler temperatures and long walk convinced me to stay home.  Maybe later this week.

And my thoughts over the past day or two have been centered on the ways he used the highs and lows to manipulate me and how the gaslighting at the end erased the highs.  So I think this text that keeps repeating in my mind hits differently now.  He had erased the highs by this point and rewritten our story to make himself the victim of my alleged poor treatment which he couldn't even explain in words to me.  A year ago, that created nothing but confusion and doubt.  Today, it feels like part of a larger plan to manipulate me and evade accountability.