Saying good bye

This post is for me. I need to put this out there even though I know he's never going to read it.

Dear Ron,

I have a lot of things to say but first I want you to know that I'm sorry for the hurt I caused you and I've forgiven you for the hurt you caused me. This does not mean that I want you back in my life. I still love you and I always will but I don't ever want to see you again.

I remember the day you told me how your brothers cheated you and stole your patent. I remember saying that people don't just take things from you, you invite them to take things from you. And after thinking about it for a minute you agreed with me. I remember telling you that you need to fight for what you really want. You agreed. What I didn't understand then was how deep your need to constantly be hurt by the people you care about was. It wasn't until the day you told me about your self hatred that I started to connect the dots. I already knew that having contact with your father was bad for you. That piece of information made it all crystal clear to me. Every time you have contact with him you start to hate yourself and you need to destroy every good thing in your life because you feel like you don't deserve to be happy.

I wish you could learn to love yourself. There's a lot to love. Deep down there's a wonderful caring man who was so badly hurt as a child that he can't accept his good side.I really hope you get the therapy that you need and learn to move past that hurt and start to love yourself. And I hope that after you learn to love yourself you can let go of your hatred of women because of what your mother did to you. I hope you find happiness with someone.

I'm never going to see you again. I hope you go back East and settle down where you belong. New Mexico is mine. This is my home. I'm happy here and want to stay here so I need you to go so I can have real peace of mind here. I think you'll be happier back East. You hated it because of what you went through with your parents and Karen. But the reality is that it's where you belong. When you learn to let go of the past you'll be happy there. Your friends are there, your children are there, it's where you belong.

The day I realized that you could not let go of your abuser I realized that I had to let go of mine.

I felt bad in court when I asked the judge to extend the restraining order for more than a year. But I had to do it. I saw the hurt in your face when she offered me five years and I accepted, and it wasn't easy to handle, but I'm not sorry I did it. I need to love myself more than I love you. You are not good for me so I let you go.

And now I'm saying good bye.