A Breakup Tale in So Many Parts
By Adrianne Frost
Part 10: 12 days, 20 hours, 2 minutes since you left me...

Today, you sent me this email: "I need for us to separate and for each of us to move on. So much has happened that I cannot come back. This is hard for me to say, but necessary."
As for "so much has happened", yes, it has, and you have chosen to run away from it. That's fine. You should have discussed it with me, you should have not blamed me for everything, you could have handled things differently. The way you left was heinous, cruel and unnecessary.
Always remember, the first year and a half to two years that you had serious erectile problems, you refused therapy and drug treatment. You admitted that you have had this problem way before we met. It happened with Carrie*, Amy*; the first girl you had sex with. I never left you, never had an affair, never asked anyone to help me have an affair. I stuck by you.
There were times when I wasn't sure if I loved you anymore. I was so sick of you not moving forward with your goals. I gave you a stone that said "Goals" on it. There were times when I wanted to leave you, but I didn't. For four years, I earned more money than you, allowing you to travel and network at festivals and the expenses were not paid for evenly. I didn't give up on you. I urged you on to write the book. I kept on you about it. I helped you to be where you are today. And I never left you.
That was the path I chose, and I see now that it may have not been the wisest. This relationship probably should have ended 9 years ago. I should have left the first time a red flag went up in my head, but I loved you and thought you were different. This is not "necessary", it's your choice. Own up to that. You could come back, but you choose not to. You just don't care about me anymore. People have asked me why on earth I would want you back. I have to say, I am running out of answers. And so I am closing that door that I had left open for you.
I wondered to myself, if I had cancer, real cancer, and was sick and going through chemo, would you still have left? That sad thing is, my answer was yes. You still would have left. Because that, in a nutshell, is who you are. It's sad to think I thought you were a different person. Or at least I convinced myself that you were. But you were like this all of the time.
Since you left, my acid reflux is gone. Since you left, my itchiness is gone. But my heart still hurts and my stomach is still lovesick.
I move back and forth from hurt to betrayed, from anger to forgiveness. I thank God I'm losing weight, because by the time I see you in mediation, I'll be like Joan Collins on D. I will be Alexis Carrington Colby Whatever, shoulder pads and lashes, chin up and tits high. Even though I feel more like Pamela Sue Martin when she was r on D with Emma Sams.
Maybe you left because I'm prouder to know t little tidbit, rather than who the current Supreme Court justices are.
Maybe you left because I'm five kinds of crazy with no apologies.
Maybe it was because I'm damaged goods and I will never be able to sustain a relationship.
Or because I take a cocktail of meds every day to control the results of that damage.
Or because every day is a struggle to overcome all the hardships I've endured
Or that I was still strong and resilient, despite it all... and ....
you got your strength from me and came to resent me for being more of a man than you...
Or maybe you feel like I took it all away from you, with that swinging pendulum and gun.
I can still feel you hating me. I can still feel you loving me. I can still feel like you're coming in through that door again, calling, "Hellloooo?", just like you used to do. I miss you and loathe you and forgive you and pity you. But now, it seems, you'll never come home.

I have to say it out loud, You're never coming home.
Whatever the case, I'm shutting the door behind me, with the imprint of your hand still warm on the knob.