Letter to My Exes

Dear Exes,

First, I want to thank you for what good you brought to my life for the time we were together. If there was nothing good about our relationship I wouldn't have been in it. So, I give you credit for what you did that was good. I appreciate the laughter, the loving words, the small gestures, the flowers, the chivalry, and the challenges you presented to make me grow. I appreciate the lessons I've learned because of my experience with you. 

What I don't appreciate is you never really understanding what you had in me, not valuing me for the loving person I am, and not reciprocating my efforts in our relationship. I don't appreciate being used and taken for granted. I don't appreciate the fact that you took the love I gave willingly but were unwilling to love me back the way I deserved to be loved. I don't appreciate the fact that you didn't even see the need, or have the desire, to try. I don't appreciate feeling like the only thing I was good for was what I could do for YOU - financially, sexually, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

I am hurt and I am angry. 

I am hurt because you didn't value me enough to consider my feelings or speak my love languages. They are very simple - quality time and words of affirmation. I don't ask for much from anyone, ever; so, when I do ask for something, I expect it to be done willingly because you KNOW I would do the same for you. That wasn't important to you, though. I wasn't important to you. Damn you for not seeing how rare a gem I am. Damn you for stomping on my heart with no sense of remorse. Damn you for treating me like I was just another chickenhead.  I'm not. I'm special and unique. I am by no means perfect but I KNOW I have a huge heart and would give you the shirt off my back. I am hurt because I made a conscious effort to make sure that you knew how I felt about you; whereas, your actions and your words were either non-existent or incongruent. 

I am angry because so much time has been wasted on dead end relationships with emotionally immature men. I am angry with you, my exes; I am angry with God; mostly, though, I am angry with myself. I am angry at you guys because you wasted an incredible opportunity to be deeply emotionally connected to an incredible woman who was genuinely loving and loyal. I would have gone to the ends of the Earth for each of you but I now know that you wouldn't have done the same for me. I am angry because with each break up, I was set back emotionally and had to climb my way back up but you walked away unscathed and undaunted. In fact, you probably walked away feeling good because of everything I gave during the relationship. Yet, my spirit was broken. I am  angry at God because He gave me this huge, giving heart that continues to get broken. I give my heart to a daughter who doesn't respect or appreciate me, a granddaughter who needs my stability, clients who need support in their own brokenness, students who are eager to learn, my country, my friends, and you. I'm tired of giving and not receiving in return from the men in my life. I am angry at God because He has not seen fit to send me someone as loving as I am. More importantly, I am angry with myself because I am the one who chooses the men I allow in my life. People will only do to you what you allow them to do to you. And for too damn long, I have allowed you all to mistreat me, lie to me, cheat on me, devalue me, have non-intimate sex with me, and take from me; not requiring enough in return. I saw a quote that said, "When you know your worth, you will stop giving discounts." All my dating life, I have given discounts and that is personally disappointing. I realize that I have looked to the men in my life to validate what my father never did; simultaneously confirming my belief about myself - that "I am good enough" just being who I am. But now that I know better, I will do better.

You see, the truth is, I KNOW, without a doubt, that:

- I am worthy because I exist

- I DESERVE to be loved deeply and unconditionally

- I am a good woman even with my faults and shortcomings

- It's okay for me to ask for what I need and/or want

- I don't have to prove my worth

- I am selfless and giving because that's who I am at my core

- I love hard and deep and that makes me especially vulnerable

- I am responsible for the choices/decisions I make in my life & the consequences that result

- I define "good enough" in my life

I don't know if I will ever find a man who sees me the way I see myself, who knows what he's got before I'm gone, and who actually wants to make me happy because he values me and the love I offer. At this point, I'm not even looking. I invested a year of my life into a relationship in which I couldn't even get a compliment because that was asking too much. What the hell?! BUT, I chose to stay because you said you would try to do better and I believed you would. No more of that. IF I ever date again, I promise myself that I will take things slow and pay attention to what a man actually brings to the table, not what he could bring. I will not settle for less than I deserve.

I sincerely apologize for making you guys responsible for validating my worth. That was never your responsibility and it put way too much pressure on you and on our relationship. I apologize for pushing too hard, being too intense, and for trying to control your emotional expressions and/or manipulate your emotional depth. I apologize if I overstepped your boundaries. I apologize if I did not meet your needs. Just like I'm sure it was not your intention to hurt me, it was not my intention to make you feel uncomfortable in any way either. I willingly own my part in the demise of our relationship.

With this letter, I forgive you all for anything you did or said, intentionally or unintentionally, that hurt me in any way. I forgive my father for not engraining in me my worth and for not showing me that I was valued so I would expect the same from men in relationships. I ask God to forgive me for being so angry with Him, to heal my pain, and to either send "The One" He has for me or give me peace and joy with being single. Ultimately, and most importantly, I forgive myself for not making better choices and for giving my heart to men who couldn't take care of it. I believed I was making the best choice at that time based on the information I had; now I must make better choices and better protect my heart.  

Thank you, again, to all my exes for being true to who you are. Thank you for the stimulating conversations, the getaways, my new found love for golf, and for ending our relationship before I got stuck in a one-sided relationship that was not going to be good for me. You are all good men in your own way. I wouldn't have dated you if you weren't. :) Take care of yourselves. I wish you all the best.

Michael-Renee

On Being A Therapist - Part 3

"How do you do this everyday?," my client asked. "Why would you even want to do this?," he continued, "I don't think I could do this. I mean, how do you sit and listen to other people's problems all day? What about your problems? Or do you all not have problems since you are the 'professionals'?" "We're human," I replied. "Yeah, but you're also the 'doctor' - the one with the knowledge to fix 'people problems'." I almost laughed. Momentarily, it reminded me of my mother saying, "You're a mental health professional. You should be able to fix this," referring to my daughter's wild teenage misbehavior. Ha! If my client (and my mother) only knew! 

I wonder if he would feel differently if he knew that my high school dropout, teenage daughter, was flushing her life down the toilet by making poor choices on a daily basis. I wonder if he would feel differently if he knew that my boyfriend's grief, over the death of his mother, was so overwhelming that, not only could I not handle it or help him, but, I actually made things worse [unintentionally, of course] by getting lost in my own personal fears and needs and not being able to hear, or do, what he needed of me. I wonder if he would feel differently if he knew I had been crying myself to sleep every night this week because that same [long-term] boyfriend ended our relationship just a few days ago - and I was barely holding back the tears even as we were in my office having this conversation. I wonder if he would feel differently if he knew that, because I'm nursing a broken heart, my internal joy was significantly dampened; therefore, my love tank was only being filled, right now, by God's grace and my beautiful, loving, little granddaughter. I wonder if he would feel differently if he knew that, when I am "running on fumes," I have to dig deep into the bowels of my soul just to show up and, more importantly, be 100% present for each client that day because neither their problems nor their pain can be put on hold while I deal with my own.

"That's why every therapist should have a therapist," I told him, "because we are human, we do have problems, we do hurt, and we need help, sometimes, too." "The only difference is, we are trained to compartmentalize our own 'stuff' until we can process it appropriately," I added. So, while our lives continue, however they continue, we have chosen a career in which we still have to be present for others. Now, there are times when we reach our breaking point too, and either have to limit the clients we see or stop seeing clients temporarily. For example, couples work was very hard for me when I was going through a very painful divorce because of [his] infidelity; so, I stopped accepting new couples, for a few months, until I was able to process my own feelings of hurt, anger, grief, and shame. And I will probably limit the amount of grief work that I do, over the next couple of months, while I process my feelings of failure, guilt, shame, and hurt related to my response, or lack thereof, to my boyfriend's grief and the ultimate loss of the relationship (for which I feel responsible). I also have to be aware that, while I'm not going to stop seeing couples, I may be more sensitive to couples who are broken or breaking. 

Ethically, I must stay conscious to, and accountable for, my personal feelings so they do not cloud my objectivity. So, I will make sure to do a lot more case consultations with my two partners so they can give me their perspective on how I'm doing as well. I will be seeing my therapist tomorrow and will increase my visits with her from bi-weekly to weekly until I can pick up the pieces of my own broken heart. And last, but certainly not least, I will be praying incessantly:

(1) that God will give me the strength to get out of my bed, in spite of my sadness, and show up at my office, 

(2) that God will give me the necessary tools to stay open and present for my clients, 

(3) that God will help me to hear and think clearly as I help my clients through their process,

(4) that God's will be done in their lives as well as my own, and 

(5) that God will heal all the brokenness - mine, my clients', my boyfriend's, and my boyfriend's sons - and replace it with a renewed sense of peace, joy, hope, and love.

That's "how I do this every day." As to the "why": I do this because I know the deepest, darkest sense of brokenness - when not just your heart is broken but your body, mind, and spirit - your entire existence is like a shattered window pane that simply hasn't yet fallen out of the frame. I know hurt so deep that it feels like the only viable option for relief is death. I know despair that is so profound that you feel like you are drowning. I know how it feels when the aching in your soul finally goes numb and you can barely even cry anymore. Most importantly, though, I know that there is joy, peace, and sunlight when you get to the other side of, and finally exit, that Hell. And my clients will NEVER have to walk through Hell alone as long as I'm breathing. To me, that's being a therapist.