Thank You For Being A Jerk: An Open Letter to My Ex-husband

Dear Ex-husband, 

In the end, your poor treatment of me worked out wonderfully for the both of us. Many women are not as fortunate as I was; they were, or will be, married to men who respect them, love them, and support them in all those supportive partnerly ways. These women believed they were lucky and the whole world did too; a belief that the world we live in relies on in order to keep the patriarchy intact and misogynistic beings everywhere content and happy. 

But, me, I’m the lucky one. Because of your poor treatment, I escaped years sooner than most women who have also done a bang up job of burying their deepest secret from themselves, and the world. Because you weren’t kind, I found the strength to leave you and find myself. Now, had you been sweet, had you been at all concerned with my well-being or happiness, I would have stayed married to you for many years, maybe all of them. Had you just been nice, I would have become pregnant and mothered our children. I would have taken 23 million photos showing myself and the world that I was where I was meant to be; I had accomplished the goal, and I was happy with my perfect little heteronormative life. 

But behind the smile in the photos of our family ski trip, or the time the kids flooded the bathroom and we laughed and took photos so we could always remember how it was back then, I would have been working double time to keep a secret buried that would likely, eventually erupt like a volcano and burn everything we had so kindly, and lovingly built together. 

In time, and then likely all the time, I would be washing the dishes and longing for her; a woman with no face, no name, just...a woman. I would be waving our children off to school as I caught a glimpse of another mother, and wondered why I felt an excitement for her that I had never felt with you. I would have, at some point, hurt us both so much more than the hurt we did experience. 

If you had just been loving, it would have taken me an unknown amount of time longer to meet myself; a woman who loves women, and always has. The thought of having had to wait one second more to finally be myself sounds too painful to bear, so I am simply grateful for the pain that you did cause me. I will gladly recount the countless times I cried while sitting on the bathroom floor, the way you could make me feel lower and smaller than anyone ever had before, and how you seemed to feel bigger and better when you shamed me, as these are the real instances that catalyzed me to find myself, and become myself. 

So simply put, thank you so much for everything; every time you demeaned me, and every time you ignored me. As it turns out, it was exactly what I needed.  

Thank you,  

Nicole