Property Settlement Wars, Part II

Ed. Note: No one - absolutely no one - thinks I should continue to engage B on any topic. I probably won't send this, because B is no longer capable of thinking like the man I once knew. I just wanted to write this

B:

First things first. Read my words. Read them carefully and try to read them openly and objectively. I think this is probably my last ditch effort to get you to really listen to me. I have more than earned the right to ask you to listen to me.

It is nothing short of ridiculous for us to go to war. Neither one of us is invested in the property we are fighting about and this is really about you not liking me telling you to dance according to my prearranged steps. You have never done well on other people's terms and you freak the fuck out when you feel ordered.

On paper and in your proclamations to others, I know you can sell our breakup as you being generous and magnanimous. I got the condo, you bought my car, I got all the personal property. I know that is how you see it most days and it was your penance for how you wronged me. I know that. Hell, that is how I would frame it for you if we were still together.

That ignores a shitload of history. I didn't wrong you. I was your best friend and most loyal supporter. Still am, although that is waning. I was the person who went to every soccer game you coached because I supported you. I was the person who befriended your mother and took her to bingo and anywhere else she wanted to go because you had no patience for her. I visited her without you, as did my brothers - independent of me. I was, in every sense, the most supportive and loyal spouse anyone could hope to have. I have never betrayed you or our relationship. That has been unthinkable to me.

On the other hand, you have not been loyal to me in many years. You didn't return my loyalty to you and, in fact, have thrown me under the bus to save yourself. You sacrificed me and my law firm for your professional cowardice. You did that because you could rely upon my loyalty to you. I ran to your side when the going got tough. You never even considered how that whole thing would affect me. It does and will for the rest of my professional life. But what killed me the most -- when I realized we were really done -- is you never gave a second thought as to how that whole press drama would affect me.

You didn't know that the night after I came running to you and assured you -- that for the entire week after -- I was dealing with personal and professional fallout and completely devastated. You couldn't think outside your own little world. It was all about you. That is when I really came to understand that you were not loyal to me at all.

What kills me is that is what what made you so attractive to me back in the day -- your sense of loyalty. I learned that from you and it is the best thing I took from our marriage. It pains me to think that I am a better person for having married you, and yet you are so different from the man I married. Absolutely no one would describe you as loyal anymore.

I have no intention of ever betraying you or our relationship, yet you seem so bent on discarding all of it. I will try to honor our relationship and all of our shared history, even though you checked out so long ago. You seem to think that you can right the wrongs of us by being a bully to me and becoming some other person in your new life. I have the benefit of history and knowing you as well as I do.

You are at a crossroads, B. You can either be an asshole for asshole's sake (and fight a losing battle), or you can man the fuck up. You fucked up our relationship and you don't have the sack to own up to that (aside from a few random text messages). You fucked us up and negated a decade's worth of unconditional support. You did that. You can either own it or be an asshole. One way delivers you peace, the other just perpetuates drama. Please try to be the man I once thought you were.

If we have to go to war, so be it. I don't have skeletons in my closet and I have always been loyal to you. I don't want anything from you aside from peace. You really need to have a moment of introspection where you fully get how badly you fucked our relationship and, it needs to be said, HOW COOL I HAVE BEEN. If I have to go to war, I will fight the way you taught me and no one needs that. We don't want to be together. There is so little to fight over. Just let me go, B. We aren't going to be friends anytime soon. Let me go and let's get this over with.