September 17, 2010
Dear Mommy,
As a mother, I can understand how this might be a very hard letter for you to read, but today I decided to file for divorce. Well, perhaps "decided" isn't the best word to use, as I'd basically determined that filing for divorce was the only avenue for me to take. I knew I was living in a fishbowl (as one of the LOR {Local Orthodox Rabbi's} had put it) and this particular goldfish was looking green around the gills. I guess the family decided for me. Rejection is a powerful thing.
I can't understand why you don't love me. Maybe I just was never pretty enough, or good enough, or thin enough, or enough of an earth mother. I know that "R" is all of those things. She's damn near perfect. Maybe that's why you spend so much more time loving her. Maybe that's why "S" has his emotional affair with her... maybe in the end, that's why there is an end.
You want to know why I'm angry... there are so many reasons, I just don't know where to start. But, maybe the past 35 years is a good place.
I've been learning a lot about domestic abuse. Being who I am, where I've coming from and knowing where I am going, the concept of getting beaten up is not a new one. But, it doesn't happen to me. However, I had thought that it anyone was going to do it, they would at least apologize afterwards. Then again, I look at how Abba treats you, how Zaidy treated Bubby, and how basically the entire treats everyone who isn't part of the family, and I have one of those "duh" lightbulb moments. Yep, I get it. But, I still don't quite understand why I thought I would get an apology.
Nope, not here. No apology had come, at least, not a sincere one. The night of the assault he called after I'd told the uncle that I was expecting an apology (at the very least) and got a "canned" voice mail "i'm sorry" message. But that was it. I'm still counting my blessings that I have a witness, because without her, I am sure that my police report would have mysteriously "disappeared" into the annals of "somewhere". It's amazing how the frum community has the power to do nothing when they want to.
I did get some sort of "if you had called your father he would have had come up and broken every bone if your body" in therapy, but that was as close to a real honest apology as I got. So, divorce it was. I mean, who could continue to live like this? Maybe you could have, but I was going to be stronger than you, Mommy. And I am going to set a better example for my children, especially for my daughter.
Two years had gone by and we hadn't had sex. Did you know that? He had told me that he thought he could be gay. Gay!? In the frum community? You know who that would get blamed on; the wife of course. Something I must be doing wrong... You had told me that a year ago. You told me I was emasculating him, that by asking him to get a job, I was making him feel like less of a man, and that when *I* needed support, I wasn't going to get it.
And yet, do you know, that until he beat me up, I would have stayed? That's how little I thought of myself? That I would have stayed with that man, living with that misery, until I had died, withering away to nothing...under any circumstances. And the marriage counseling.. or the farce of the marriage counseling that we'd had, or rather, I had been blackmailed into by my brother? What a fiasco that was! Every single word I said, twisted, and then repeated to my family... and there was no way that anything I did or said at that point would have made me look good. So, I stayed silent, and you thought I was a drug addict, because it was easier for you to think that the wrong was with me, than with your perfect son in law, or your perfect daughter in law...
Why is the blame always with someone not of your blood? Does that mean that you might think that the bad blood is genetic? It's not you know.. it's not genetic.. it IS changeable. All you have to do is be willing to admit that there is a problem; and then change it. Exactly as I'm doing. Whether you like my choices or not, I'm finding that I'm finally, really quite comfortable with what I am going to do.
And, then, I found the blog... the divorcebusting.com blog. With your son in law's public "AOL" email address, describing, in detail, his perception of the past few months of our life, as skewed as it was. Humiliating to think that I had been working my behind off, two, something three jobs, taking care of the finances, the house, and barely myself, and he was sitting around blogging and "networking", instead of looking for work. And I know that it hasn't been easy. Yep.. I've been depressed... but then again, who wouldn't be. Gay??? Really?
So, again, divorce it was. But, it's not going to be pleasant. This much I know...
Here goes... take a deep breath.. and jump.. out of the fishbowl, and right into the mouth of the shark.
Next up.. Dear "R",
