BONUS MATERIAL: MY ATTEMPTS TO SAVE MY MARRIAGE A WEEK AFTER MY EX/FIRST HUSBAND ENDED OUR MARRIAGE VIA TEXT

I was emailing into the void; nothing I said would have made a difference…

Bonus material is the original ‘source’ material shared for paid subscribers. Of course, not everyone is interested in the extras and are happy to catch up on the chapters. To get a recap of the chapters so far, click here.

Currently, I’m writing about Benoit, my first/ex-husband and how our marriage ended. Of course, I was distraught and devastated at this new development at the time but rebuilding my life was the best thing I ever did and it led me to what came next.

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27 February 2016, one week after Benoit ended our marriage

Subject: Friday Night Thoughts

[Benoit],

I never expected our marriage to progress in this way. I think you’re behaving uncharacteristically. I think that you’re under a lot of stress and pressure, as anyone would be, and now is not the time to make final decisions about anything.

You suffer from PTSD, you are depressed, your father is on his deathbed, you have terrible headaches and explosive nosebleeds, you ended an eight-year career, we just moved halfway across the world, and you started a new, high-stress career.

You did not give yourself time to break, and you see me as a stressor, and the only way to get rid of the stress is to cut me out. But that is not rational. It’s not a way of dealing with all of the stress coming forward. If you would just communicate with me—as I cannot read your mind (I do not know if you’re angry why you’re angry if you do not tell me)—then I could be there to be a resource to help you through this difficult time in OUR life (because what you do affects me too).

But even with that, I cannot support you if you do not tell me how you feel support because apparently the ways I support you, you cannot feel. Think deep down, and can you not think of anything worth saving in our marriage? Can you not think of anything good in it? Look back through our pictures on Facebook, and the pictures in the coffee table, and tell me there’s nothing worth holding onto.

We had a glass coffee table with a large drawer with compartments where things could be displayed.

The man I knew was loving, caring, and wanted to take care of me; he also was adamant that he didn’t believe in separation and wanted our marriage for LIFE. I felt that we were old enough when we had made the decision to marry that we were making a sensible decision, but there were some strange circumstances even around that, and I’ve always wanted to know the underlying reason of why you didn’t wish to tell your family and friends?

I may as well have emailed a giant raspberry farting sound because that’s all he ever heard when I wrote anything.

I’m going to write to you and tell you my perspective, and, for once, I want you REALLY to hear and understand me. Read it three times if necessary.

I think the main issue in our marriage is communication or lack thereof. Maybe you’ve never been used to communicating regularly with someone, but in marriage and life I was supposed to be your confidant, the one person you could turn to, but you never did.

I feel I have been living with a stranger. I have been thinking a lot this week, and I know very little about you. For one, you don’t tell me about things. You don’t come home and update me about your dad or your family, you don’t tell me your dreams or your thoughts or your feelings.

You don’t even tell me about your job because if you did I’d know that you don’t leave your phone on your desk (like I thought) and that you bring it to meetings. You do not tell me anything, but get mad when I do the “wrong” thing and cannot read your mind.

You expect me just to “know” what I did wrong or how you feel when, but you’ve never let me in on how you feel. Lately, you’ve just exploded and screamed at me at every turn.

I look back and realize I do not know you because you never let me in. I have been an open book from the beginning. I tell you my hopes, fears, and dreams on a daily basis. I share with you my thoughts, the things that I found out in the day, my expectations, my upsets, everything, and you have bottled everything up so long that it has poisoned your thoughts, and, thus, our marriage.

I would like you to do something very important for me, please. I want you to WRITE BACK to every single paragraph of this email.

I put this last bit in underline and in red text as if it would matter…

I want you to take the time to read it first, and then I want you to respond in bold, in red, in some way to every single paragraph. I want to know your thoughts. I want to know how you are feeling. I want you—if nothing else—really to think about how you’re feeling.

This activity may be new to you, but I think as you’re feeling down and depressed right now that you have to be honest with yourself and with me, and figure out what you want and how you feel. Please take the time to respond.

Another concern I have is that you have no one to talk to and you’re stuck in your own head with your own thoughts with no one to moderate—agree or disagree—your opinion.

Since I was naturally shocked by the fact that you had decided you didn’t want to make our marriage work, and I do hope you’ll change your mind, I shared our exact text exchange (a screenshot so that you wouldn’t feel that I misrepresented your side) with three friends, and they all had different opinions that I believe you should hear snippets of some.

Before I go over that, however, I want to let you know something that has been on my mind:

When we met I left you under no illusions as to who I was. You keep saying how I worked three jobs, and I stayed in shape, and I had ambition and all that, but what you fail to realize or remember is that, yes, I stayed in shape, I worked three jobs, and I had ambition (I still do by the way), but (since these are the faults I have in your eyes) my apartment was absolutely filthy, so I rarely cleaned; I ate boiled eggs, chopped up raw fruit and vegetables, and chicken breast, so I did not cook every night during the week; I prepared my food on weekends and ate out of tubs during the week; Brittany was the one who dealt with paying all the bills, making important phone calls, making sure that things were fixed, so I didn’t deal with many “real world” issues on my own; and I did laundry as little as possible, and I most certainly never folded things and rarely hung them.

So what you don’t see is how far I have come in becoming your wife in trying to inch closer to what you want and “expect” of me. I have mostly kept our house tidy, laundry done, some meals cooked, worked two jobs, gone to the gym here and there, been loving, tried to be supportive, but none of that is good enough for you.

I can learn to do more domestic tasks, but even if I stay in shape, work several jobs, cook, clean, do laundry, follow my dreams, and everything else will even that be enough?

The answer is no but that hardly matters. I’m well shot of it all now. But just then it felt unfair. My emotions were raw and frayed.

And, yes, you work long hours, but how many hours will I “work” if I do all of those things in a day? I don’t have the energy you have either. Yes, I want to come home to a nice home too. Yes, I had planned to cook for you each night, and even do the dishes afterwards (although you used to do them in the past). I had even planned to do and fold laundry and put it away (which I had already started doing in Minnesota), but you never gave me the chance to settle in and prove to you how far I have come in three years.

But I can’t help but feel it will never be enough. And if you go in search of a new wife or girlfriend will you ever find someone willing to do all of those things you demand with very little in return?

And this is what is known as “the second shift.” If I did all those things, would I even be happy and the answer is no. Benoit never would have been happy with me. I have no clue if his second wife does all of these things but she’s a high earner so maybe that covers it for him.

Really think about it, [Benny], what do I ask of you? I accepted you as you were the minute we met. Were there things I didn’t like? Sure. But I accepted them, and I loved you. I didn’t expect you to do five million things for my love. I didn’t tell you, “Why don’t you care more about your appearance?” (Something you’ve said to me). Or “should you be eating that? Do you want to go to the gym today?” (Also something you’ve said to me).

If you’re tired, I accept you’re tired. I don’t ask you to account for your bedtime. I don’t ask you to account where and what you spend. All I have ever asked from you is for your love, your affection, sex, and the occasional picture hanging or odd job. I’ve never pestered you to do dishes, to cook, to clean, to do other things, but if I’m mistaken please tell me.

Please tell me what expectations I’ve had of you that have been unreasonable? I really want us to communicate. I really want to know.

Sigh! Why was I fighting for a marriage with someone who didn’t respect me at all, who thought all of these things were ‘reasonable’ expectations? And maybe they are for some women. Maybe I am really as abnormal and completely bonkers as Benoit thought but maybe I’m not…or maybe I don’t care to be that sort of person…

But still, I’m sad for the past version of me that accepted so much less and thought I had so much more…

Whilst we are on this topic, you say I don’t compromise. You even went to [Karen] as your confidant back in November, and I felt utterly betrayed by that because you knew she did not like me. You never told me what you said to her, but I’d like to know. What is it exactly that you said to her that made her be so nasty to me? I guess by ending our marriage she is winning.

And, at any rate, I should have been your confidant. Our marriage has broken down because YOU never tell me what’s going on in your head. I am not nor can I ever be a mind reader. How can I know what is going on if you never ever tell me?

All of this happened because I texted you, and instead of telling me to stop, instead of telling me even that night that you were pissed off at me, you said “nothing’s wrong.”

But something was very wrong. You were livid at me, but you didn’t tell me. Could the situation have been addressed at that time if you had told me? When you told me what was going on and how mad you were, what did I do? I apologized. I said I didn’t know and I was sorry I texted you, and that I would only text in emergencies from now on.

But I cannot fix things that I do not know. If you tell me I don’t compromise, but never tell me HOW I don’t compromise, how can I compromise? I don’t know what you mean at all because I cannot read minds.

And along those lines, when you do tell me what’s wrong and we work on it, then you need to forgive me. You cannot keep bringing up the past over and over and over again and expect us to move forward. Do I bring up the past over and over again?

Back to you saying I do not compromise. Even so, are you compromising? You’re telling me that I’ll never be what you think of as a wife, that I didn’t want to be a “wife” and you expect A, B, C, from a wife or you won’t be happy, but is that compromise, and, more importantly, is that realistic? I’d like you to find this woman who does all of these things. Or is there someone from your past that you’re thinking of who you think would have been a better wife for you?

I’m not sure who you hold up as the model wife, but let’s see.

Is [his brother’s wife] any less of a wife because her job is to be pretty? Is she less of a wife because she has someone to cook, to clean, and to help her with the children?

I’d like to remind you that [your sister], yes, she’s beautiful, intelligent, well-dressed, in shape, and she makes a lot of money in her high powered job, but she has help with the children and the cleaning and the laundry. She does cook and she does dishes, but she doesn’t find time to exercise all that much and instead stays slim through an iron willpower. Not everyone has that, but you expect me to do even more than your high-powered sister.

Even [his other sister], another beautiful and intelligent woman, works for her husband and has help at home. I haven’t observed her so I don’t know if she cooks, cleans, and does laundry, but why are they more of a wife than me?

Besides domestic tasks, which can be improved upon, what is it that I do not do as a “wife”?

Here’s how [my friend] reacted: “I can't say it's not you it's him or anything like that. But eventually, you need to look at yourself and know you tried. Some are never satisfied or crave something different but that doesn't mean you faulted or failed.”

And when I told her I felt guilty that I hadn’t cooked more and I had planned to do all of those things once I got back from Florida she said, “The thing I’m thinking and I totally understand where you are coming from in wanting to do everything that you think will make him happy, it will only make you miserable and probably isn’t what he actually wants. Whatever it is that is making him not want to do this anymore, you giving up how you are isn’t going to make it better. Not that you shouldn’t try and be a better you, you should always be willing to do more or try harder, but you shouldn’t be punished or feel ashamed when you can’t always give 1000%, and besides the odd magical woman, not everyone can work out, make dinner, clean the house, and work.”

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