Like it would ever mean anything to you…

I know I am expected to see you in the upcoming days; be it the court ruling that you see the kids or whatever it is you might try to do to crash into Beem’s birthday, although I know you’re too much of a coward to do the latter.

I don’t want to see you; God knows, your face and everything about you disgust me and fill me with a strong urge to throw up. Nonetheless, I am looking forward to it. I have a few words I would like to tell you face to face and see their effect on you. I want to see that fake hurt look that I know hides more rage than you could possibly convey as I go on saying the words I so carefully choose so that they hit where I know you’d be sore. Yes, I know your wounds the same way you know mine, and because of everything that’s been going on in my life, I have decided to blame you instead of me for a change, even if someday you were my choice.

Except that my friends -my good friends who know how my tone of voice betrays me when I start getting all angry as I speak of what you’ve done, and how my face turns all red and how my body starts shaking like I’m having a seizure- tell me it will only make me vulnerable to whatever you might have to say in reply. They tell me my words will not get through to your sick twisted mind and that you might actually mistake all the above for care or unresolved feelings.

So here it goes…

Since the night you sat me down and tried to brainwash me into thinking that it was all me, that I’ve been such a horrible horrible wife who have driven you into a dirty affair, since that night I’ve been constantly judging myself. All through that past year, fragments of our life together keep flashing in my head whenever I see quite simple things that happen through regular ordinary days, like couples fighting, like me standing in a crowd upright because there is no shoulder to lean on, or someone of those who know about it telling me that I am definitely too good for you. I would remember our small fights, and even our big ones and I would remember that even when I gave my worst reactions, the ones I would take back, I never offended you as a husband. Even when my tone of voice got too high for your inflated macho ego, even when I gave opinions that sounded more like orders to your insecure self, even when I kept crying and looking the other way as you said your lame sorry’s… I never disrespected you. My sisters and my mother implied on so many occasions that perhaps I might have, but between you and me, you know better. You know I stood by your side literally though thick and thin; I won’t name the incidents because it’s not like me, but you know each and everyone of them, not out of gratitude, but out of your hidden inferiority.

All through that time, whenever people from which I am distant tell me “… but there must have been good days”, I nod and murmur “of course there was…” only I no longer remember those. I know they must have existed but, I am sorry the things you’ve done, the horrible pain I somehow still feel under thick layers of pretense that I have recovered, make it impossible for me to focus on one good memory. The few times I could actually do that, tears came rushing from my eyes, because I couldn’t remember the specific moment, I just remembered it felt warm and felt like home, and then I remembered none of it was real… how could it have possibly been real? If it were, you would have left me before you had it in you to hurt me that way. And another thought haunts me… what if it was real? The thought that it could have actually been real will forever haunt me and scare me from ever feeling that way again. Thanks to you, my heart is crippled and my faith in romantic relationships is entirely shaken for you have forever tainted my perception of love and marriage, I resent you for that.

I tried; God knows I tried to tell my self that perhaps you’re a good person, and that all this is a result of a mad chain reaction of anger, stubbornness, and people getting in the middle. I tried so hard to tell myself that there’s a good person in there who would respond to my sincere pleads to end things in a civil way, but obviously that person is another figment of my disturbed imagination, just like the whole persona of you for which I have once fallen.

You’re not a good person; you have no morals or ethics or conscience. انت معندكش حتى كرامة و لا نخوة و لا أي حاجة من اللي بيوصفوا بيها أخلاق الرجالة. No man, no true man would do that to his wife no matter how horrible she was. No man would abandon a wife he has repeatedly abused, humiliated and badmouthed to people, and then refuse to let her go, but rather leave her that way in an… an unmarried/undivorced status. No man would find honor or manhood in such behavior. You and your likes give men such bad bad name. This is the exact thought that comes to mind every single time I am filling an application where I have to identify my marital status.

I would say you give fathers a bad name too, but I wouldn’t call you a father to begin with. You call and send text to tell me you would like to participate in whatever birthday arrangement I plan for Beem, seriously???? We ya tara hatsharek be eh, be ta3atofak, since we’re in Ramadan?!!! Is that supposed to make any sense? That you want to be a part of a birthday plan when you don’t even know what your sons look like now, that you would not recognize them if they pass you by in the street?!! You want me to buy that you would chip in a party and buy a gift that would dazzle a 3 year-old when you never bothered to support him or his brother financially for over a year now!!! And don’t even dare mentioning the lame a** alimony that wouldn’t cover one eighth of one kid’s expenses. And don’t say I sent clothes, you know the crap you sent and for whatever its worth, I sent it back, perhaps you need the money you would return them for, because I know my kids don’t need them. I thank God a million times they don’t need your gifts or your money, and I hope they never ever need them or you for that matter.

I wanted to tell you, I had to tell you that I spend a lot of time reliving the past year day by day. And in every moment I see phantoms of us reliving painful moments of hate, I realize it’s never really been me, and that it’s been you, all you. I am not denying my own share of mistakes, I admit them, and I won’t even justify them by saying they were unintended because I have sincerely apologized when I thought an apology was due, I paid my dues, one after another. My biggest mistakes however remain; choosing you, believing you, enduring you, doubting my instincts, shunning my doubts, and giving you the other cheek even when I did it knowing you’d slap me even harder… you’ve shown me the weakest version of me, and my biggest mistake was that I let you.

I’ve been thinking it through and through, trying to know where I went wrong and learn from my mistakes, but I somehow realized that it’s impossible to learn from those mistakes. I would not know which mistakes not to repeat in an argument with a loved one or a spouse because I am not sure I can ever give my heart or my name in marriage to anyone once I break free from your chains. My fear of choosing wrong or being blinded by love would forever stop me from being in a situation where I might repeat any of those mistakes.

So if that’s why you don’t want to let me go, to make sure I won’t move on and give my love to whoever would deserve and appreciate it, rest assured. Trust me, the wounds and the scars are way too much for anyone to understand, let alone heal.

How does that make you feel? How does it feel to know that you have destroyed something in me? Makes you feel good, honorable, more of a man??? I know your sick delusional ego would make it feel that way to you, and I will try to have my peace with that for I know that whoever reads those words, even if it were you reading them on the web not knowing that they are meant for you, whoever will read them will be disgusted at you and see you for the disgrace to humanity that you are.

I tried to find it in me to forgive you because it’s Ramadan and it's time for maghfera. I tried to practice forgiving, but I found myself wishing you none of it for you have done nothing to deserve it and I think that even forgiveness has to be earned.

(I know… so much for the whole Ramadan spirit I was trying to get into! That’s why anger IS a deadly sin.)