Thank You

To the man who left,

I am not bitter anymore. I don't want to be bitter anymore, and I am stronger than this hold that our situation has on me. Therefore, I am releasing myself from it, and you too. In the the past I have constantly wished ill-will against you; wishing your actions would one day become your misery. Not now though, when I think of you, I feel razbliuto. So, instead of being angry at you, I thank you.

You may read this one day and feel it's done out of sarcasm, but wholeheartedly, thank you. For not only have I released myself from you, you released me also. I thank you for not fighting for me, giving up, and walking out, because I feel that I am exactly where I am suppose to be. I thank you for the deep-seated wounds; I should loathe you. I cannot, because now I'm courageous, I am enlightened. 

As a mother, my most important role, I thank you for them. Not the hereditary part. I truly want to say thank you on their behalf. They are much too young to fathom your relevance, and I am much too kind to explain candidly. Perhaps in the future, you can thank me for not putting images of you in their head. I am allowing them to think freely, without any stigma attached. Nonetheless, all that they are, all that they have become, I thank you.

I thank you for giving me the opportunity to show my daughter how she ought to be treated. Whomever she decided to love in her future, I am confident that she will only give herself to someone who adores her, completely. Thank you for making it impossible for me to enable you, to excuse your violence and hostility. Thank you for not allowing me to be another battered wife, who teaches her daughter that it is tolerable and common to be mistreated. She has lived and will live a much more serene life since we didn't expose her to such an impossible livelihood.

Above all I thank you for my son. I couldn't imagine raising a man who acts like his father, if his father was in fact a man like you. Fortunately, for my son, his father is a grander man than that. Thank you for forcing me to move on; he's wonderful through and through. I know without a doubt, that my son will be an earnest man. He will treat his family with the ultimate appreciation, no thanks to you there. Yet, I do thank you for finding another woman to take my place, so I could find another man to take yours. It is by far the biggest blessing you've bestowed upon me, if you want to look at it that way.

As irony would have it, I also want to thank you on account of my husband. The psychological damage you caused me, seeped into my relationship with him, but he fought hard to comfort me. He never used cruelty, just an unconditional compassion that I had never known. I did not even think at the time I deserved. The whole time he was trying to reel me in, I was pulling back. Thank you for making me momentarily crazy, so he had to fight and support me in a way you never could. A way that has brought him and I so close, a closeness that is ceaseless. A love that is honored and cherished.

Specialist say that the last step of acceptance and recovery is forgiveness. I do forgive you. I forgive you so much, that I am grateful for your existence in my life, though so harrowing. I decided a few days ago, after a drunken stupor full of slurred words of agony regarding you, and the distress you brought me and still bring me. My anxiety about the fate of my children's emotional state regarding you as their biological father. How I yearn that this wasn't truth. Alas, it is, and though I am obliged to you for them, I wish I had done better by them inherently. It makes me furious that you have had this influence over me, even in moments of intoxication. I can only hope that my vindication will free me from that. It will, I'm certain of it.

I accept this plight for what it is. I recognize that the best and most thoughtful thing you could have done is do what you did exactly. Leave us be. Grant us the freedom to laugh and play the way we do now. My ability to finally move beyond this has lifted a great deal of weight off of my shoulders, it really does feel like a release of tension. If you are ever able to read this, take it for what it is. It a statement of immunity. Do not feel guilty, your absence as brought a great deal of joy. You didn't disrupt our life, you gave us the chance to make our lives better. Thank you forever for that.