I just sent Mr. Ex the letter I have been working on for two weeks.
Mr. Ex,
I am writing to thank you for agreeing to divide some of our joint assets. I hope we continue to make progress toward a final settlement.
I wrote these beginning lines to you, as I was en route to Nebraska where I attended the graduation of some friends at UNO. I also visited your family. That visit brings me to the reason I am continuing this rather difficult project of writing to you. We have important family milestones approaching, Ex. M. will graduate in May of 2011, and C. and N. (the latest intelligence reveals) may have their wedding in the fall of 2012. My hope you is that you and I will both attend these events and be able to look each other in the eye and share in our daughters’ joys. I do not want either of them to fear any drama between you and me. I think wrapping up our division of joint assets and signing off on our final agreement would, for me, be a big step in that direction.
I want you to know that at this point, just over three years from the day you told me our marriage was over, I am ready for some version of peace. The heartbreak is behind me now. It’s tough to be rejected, to be “un-chosen,” but I really want to get on with my life, concentrate on my writing, and be at my mom’s side whenever she needs me. You have a wife, a son, and perhaps more children (and grandchildren) in your future. You are, and always will be, C. and M.’s dad. The four of us are no longer a family, and while I do continue to mourn that fact, I realize there is no point dwelling on it. I want to go forward, not remain stuck in our current limbo with our unresolved financial matters digging a hole of resentment deeper and deeper.
And so the last verse is the same as the first. Let’s wrap things up, Ex. We’ve verbally agreed on what the division of assets should be. There’s been a draft of an agreement on the table for years. If you have comments on that agreement, my attorney and I need to hear from you. I’ve spent more than $40,000.00 in attorney’s fees. Continuing to drag out our financial settlement is most definitley an impediment to future peace.
As a final thought, I ask you to ponder the last lines of a Robert Frost poem that I’ve heard you quote many times:
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Let us tend to the work required of us. Though we are no longer promised to each other, let’s keep the implied promise inherent in our relationship to two people we both love.
Sincerely,
Ex-in-the-City
1 comment:
Perfect.
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