Letter To Husband

Dear Husband,

I think I hate you.

As I've been sitting at home, alone, these past few nights, I have cried a lot. I cry because it hurts me that you seem to have stopped caring. I think back to the beginning of our relationship. Where is the guy that used to call me 10 minutes after I left the house to tell me he missed me? Where is the guy that blindfolded me after I came home from work, and led me into a room lit up with candles, a tape of our song playing, and slow danced with me for hours? Where is the guy that used to write me poems nearly every day?

I think he is long gone.

Then, I think back to a not so great period of time. You would stay out for hours, and I knew you were with her. I remember you slipping out of bed one morning, after getting a phone call. I followed you, wondering why you had been so careful not to wake me. Only to look out the window and see you kissing her in the driveway. I wanted to run outside, to tackle her to the ground and beat her until I felt better. I wanted to hit you too, so that you could experience some of my pain. But I didn't. I waited until you came back in. I told you I had seen you, I knew what was going on, and that if you so much as spoke to her again, we were through.

I realize now that's where it should have ended.

I should have realized you had issues with growing up, and being a man. I should have realized it when I worked a full time, crappy, 8 dollar an hour job for three years because you couldn't manage to hold down a job. I should have left, instead of continuing to work and support us, barely able to pay rent and keep food on the table.

Then, I got pregnant. You were overjoyed. You spouted declarations left and right. You would be such a good daddy. You would work, as much as you needed to, as many hours of you could, because now you were going to be a father. Now it was time to step up and stop being a child. I was nervous. I had my doubts. There was now a baby on the way though, so I let it go and hoped that this would be the thing that would make you be a man. There was no way you would still act that way, when you had a daughter to take care of. Not as much as you talked about how your brother is a deadbeat dad, and you would never, never be that way. It wouldn't happen. No way. I had faith in you.

Had.

Now, not only have you not stepped up to the plate, you have run in the opposite direction. You hardly come home anymore. You have been gone for the last three days. I have seen you maybe a total of 3 hours in that time. You spend the nights at our friend's house, sleeping in bed with her. Our friends say nothing has happened, but they can't watch all the time. Instead of acting ashamed, or sorry, you accuse me of being paranoid. You throw the blame for you being gone at me, saying that maybe if I cooked more, cleaned more, did what you wanted, you would stay home more. You think me asking you to watch the baby while I cook dinner is you having to bribe me to cook. You tell me that I am making a big deal out of nothing, that there is nothing wrong with how you are acting. You say you will do whatever you want to do. I ask you, if there is nothing wrong with how you are acting, then what do you think your sister and father would have to say about it?

You are silent.

You know.

Today when you came in, I thought you were going to stay. I thought I would give it one last shot, to try and save our family, to make sure our daughter had a daddy around while she is growing up. She deserves to have a father.

Instead you left again.

And as I looked at you, gathering your things to walk out the door yet again, one thought kept running through my head.

I hate you. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.

There was no crying when you left this time. The hurt came from how much I loved you. That love, that I once thought was indestructible, is slowly being replaced with anger. Anger that after all I have done for you, and put up with, despite everyone asking me why I did, you can treat me this way.

What makes me angrier is the fact that my daughter has a dad who doesn't want to bother with her. She will have to grow up wondering why she doesn't get to come home after school and play with her father, or have him read bedtime stories to her. She may wonder what is wrong with her, why her daddy didn't care enough to stick around. One day I will have to answer those questions. And I think I really do hate you for that.

Tonight, if you bother to come back as you said you would, I think your clothes will be packed. I think that they will be sitting by the front door. And I think this is the best thing for our daughter, despite the fact that part of me still wants to cling to you, to beg and plead for you to come back to me. It is our daughter that is important now, though. I think it will be easier for her if you are gone before she gets old enough to be hurt by her father walking out. There is a part of me that is screaming, that feels like I am about to rip my heart out of my chest. This is not easy for me, despite how angry I am.

But I am her mother. I have to be strong in this, for her sake.

Because I am all she has.