This is the first letter I wrote to the OW that I didn't burn. I burnt the first few in an effort to move on, and I burnt the one letter that the bitch wrote to me. It still haunts me, but at least I can't obsess about it. This is the oldest one that I kept;
I'll use 'Ethel' as her name here.
To Ethel, Fuck You.
Fuck you. Really. Fuck you. How fucking stupid are you. You are not alone, there are so many stupid people like you in the world, convincing themselves that what they are doing is justifiable. Fucking moron. If you still believe it, you are still an idiot. You are so selfish, so unbelievably selfish. I am learning about how and why I was not a great lover for fWH, what goddam business is that of yours? It should never have been you fucking c***. You gave my H confidence through sex by satisfying your own needs too. Do you know why I was a bad lover? Because of my depression and sexual child abuse. I did not know that I was able to enjoy sex, I felt like it was something I had to do to be human, but if I liked sex, that would mean I liked what was happening to me when I was a child. I am learning to like sex for me now. All I knew was the sex that I had with my husband, and I thought I was managing my flashbacks and pain well by burying my abuse and plowing forward. Why did this realization have to come from the horrible affair you two had? I ask myself often - was there any other way? My H believed that he was trying to talk to me, but we are both learning about how poorly we were doing with trust and communication.
Fuck you for your awfulness, for telling me that you are a good person who made bad choices - what makes us good or bad but how we choose to live and interact in this world? You are, through your choices, very bad, very selfish, and have in my opinion made horrible parenting choices. How is your daughter going to navigate her way through relationships now having witnessed your destructive behaviour? What effects will YOUR choices have on MY children as life moves forward? What choice did I have in repairing my relationship through your affair with my husband? None.
You have hurt every member of H and I's family; our parents, siblings, children, each other and close friends. There are at least 20 people suffering because of you and my H. Was it worth it? From a global perspective? Was the intimacy you shared with my H more important than my life and the lives of people we love? How could you not have thought of these things from the beginning? How could you, selfishly take what you wanted without regard for humanity and the world around you? You never deserved one second of your time in the affair, but you took it greedily again and again. You fucking selfish asshole.
I know you are suffering, but it's all your fault. My H played a part, but you also could have stopped it before it began and you didn't. Did you. How can you still feel like a good person? I truly can't understand that. The only answer I can find is that you are completely self absorbed and genuinely stupid. You don't have the intelligence to see a world bigger than your own. Right now I do hate you, and I am writing this to release some of that hate, because my energy is needed in every other part of my life.
You simple-minded girl. You "felt as though you knew me?" Fuck you!! You don't know a single real thing about me. Not one. I know things you and my H talked about during your make believe world and you DO NOT KNOW ME!! I don't pretend to know you, but I know what you have been doing with my life partner for over two years you whore. Those FACTS lead me to my judgements of you, I'm not foolish enough to imagine that I know anything else about you. What I know is enough, and I don't want to know anything else about you. Ever. People like you existing in the world tempt me toward depression again, that there is such selfishness and stupidity that I won't be able to protect my children from.
Because people need protecting from you Ethel if you don't change. Today my hate and anger comes from thinking that you may still feel as though what you two did was right in any way. It is the most wrong that I have ever encountered in real life, ever. I never imagined that I would have to deal with such horror in my lifetime. My father died of cancer when I was 17, and the pain and devastation of this affair is so much more than that awful experience. Your irresponsible actions and choices make me wonder what people are capable of in this world and why I believe that I am not capable of doing such wrong. Is it a stronger sense of morals? Is it pure stupidity? Is it selfishness? Could I, one day, be able to hurt so many people just to get what I want? The thought is terrifying and overwhelming and I can't make sense of it all.
What I do believe, is that my H is not stupid. He was selfish and hurt by me and built a fantasy world to justify the wrong you two were doing. But he is starting to realize what he has done and is no longer trying to make excuses. He knows he hurt you and feels terrible about that. He also said that he wishes he could turn back time and erase your affair. You will be his biggest regret in life, and even if he had chosen you, his life would still have been full of regret and shame.
Fuck you. You almost ruined my H's life, you did not "make him happy and then send him home to me everyday" (from her letter to me). I was struggling to manage life with two young children while dragging depression and PTSD and sexual abuse behind me, and I had absolutely no idea that there you were in front of me. Holding my head under water. You did that to someone that you didn't know at all. Fuck you. Fuck you for trying to drown me. Did you feel good giving and receiving sex with my husband? Are you sad now without it? FUCK YOU> You never deserved it for one second and I don't give a shit if you're sad now. I don't give a flying fuck what you do with the rest of your life, but I am afraid for other people you may trample down to get what you want.
You irresponsible, selfish, fuck.
[written 1 month after Dday.
I posted my most recent letter under the 'reconciliation' forum if you want to see how I have changed and grown 7 months later. I still like what I said here, and it was very accurate at the time.]
