I don't know what you want or expect from me. But I'll try to make my position as clear as possible.
You treated me with cruelty when I was most vulnerable, you kicked me when I was down, not once or twice, but repeatedly. This consistent pattern is well documented in emails from the past year.
On Friday, September 1 2006, 63 hours after I was diagnosed with cancer, you responded to my request that you treat me with kindness, empathy, and compassion by accusing me of expecting you to "check your balls at the door" and "become a spineless wimp." You wrote: "I'm not interested in changing my ways one iota, not now. It's worked very well for me up to now. I'm certain it will continue to work for me in the future."
I realize now that I should have listened to you and believed that you really meant exactly what you said.
You also accused me of trying to change you, and in a way you were right. I wasn't so much trying to change you myself, as hoping against hope that you would be willing to change yourself. But subsequent months proved to me what a mistake that was. I finally realized that my only choice was to either accept you exactly as you were determined to remain: angry, narcissistic, controlling, unwilling to engage in genuine emotional intimacy; or to terminate the relationship. I chose the latter and I don't regret it.
Now I'm slowly and carefully rebuilding a new life for myself. I don't know whether this new life will be measured in months, years, or decades, but I do know one thing with absolute certainty: however long or short my new life is going to be, there is absolutely no place in it for people who treat me with cruelty or kick me when I'm down. There's no place for people who believe that empathy and kindness are spineless wimpy women's work, beneath their contempt. There is no place for people who are unwilling to change and learn and grow emotionally. I don't know how much time I have left, but I do know it's not nearly enough to waste one precious minute on people like that.
So I have no friendship to offer you.
Best wishes with your own future, I hope it continues to work very well for you.
0 Comments