Dear Christine,
I would love for you to print this letter because for the first time in my life I can be honest.
My first wife and I have a child. When I got married, I thought things were okay until she had an affair and left me.
I got involved with someone else after that but it did not amount to anything. In fact, all the women I had cheated on me. A few years later I met a young woman. I was 50 years old and she was 30.
When we met, we started off good until she got pregnant. I was mad because I thought that a man my age had no right with a young child. It was her first. I did not want her to keep the child and told her to get rid of it. She said no. I stayed with her because of what my friends would have said.
Christine, I knew that she loved me. She cooked, cleaned for me and I repaid her by not giving her anything. I would tell her some of the worst things that you could think of, yet she stayed. She would ask me if I loved her and I would say things like “sometimes I do”.
Most days I would leave her alone and just hang out with friends. Sometimes I would take her out along with our daughter because I wanted people to think I was a good father.
I gave her no money to buy food, soap – nothing, but she still looked out for me. I used her past against her as she was not loved as a child by her family. She often told me that my friends meant more to me than our family did. Still, she stayed with me. Often when she called I would refuse to answer the telephone. Still she stayed with me.
One day however, I noticed a change. I noticed she was saying very little to me and only spoke if I asked. She no longer asked if I would see her or asked me if I loved her. She continued to cook, wash and we even had sex as normal, but there was a change. She did not make any comments about whether I stayed or went. The look in her eyes changed. I would try to pick a fight, but she would never reply.
One morning she got up, made breakfast, prepared my lunch and said “Enough is enough”. She said she no longer wanted to be in the relationship and it was not the way she wanted to live and raise a child.
She added that she was not happy and she had not been for a while. I asked her if there was another man and she asked me if I was crazy, that was the last thing on her mind. She told me I did not love her, that I never listened or cared about what she had to say and with that, she left.
Christine, it is now 15 years later and I am an old man. I never found another woman like her. I treated her so bad that she would not get involved with another man. I know I was wrong and I do love her. I just never knew how to show it. I did not want to get hurt.
– V.
Dear V.,
I am really sorry to hear about your life of regret, but you only have yourself to blame. You treated this woman like scum, yet she loved you until she could not take it anymore. You messed up your life, hers and your daughter’s.
Find comfort in the fact that you are not alone and that there more people like you out there.
You’ve noted at the end of your letter that you love this woman. I do not believe this. I believe you despised her, used her, and that now in your latter years, you are regretting your actions. I think it is a little too late to make amends. Those friends you tried to please and fooled are probably not around for you either.
If this woman were to see it fit to forgive you [and I am sure she has], I don’t think you’ll stand the chance of winning her heart again.
Forgive yourself and let her find happiness the best way she can.
– CHRISTINE
