A Letter To My Ex on the 10th Anniversary We Never Reached

Dear Ex,

Today would have been our 10^th wedding anniversary, but we didn’t make it. I look back on my life and it is crazy to me to think that I met you only a few years shy of half my life ago. I was still just a kid; playing house in a grown up life.

It was ten years ago today, a decade to be exact, that I innocently walked down the aisle to become your wife. It was a decade ago today that you took the first part of me, not just my hand in marriage, but my entire body as well. It was the day that my hopes for a future that would make up for my past shattered down around me into a million broken dreams.

Still though, I just wanted to take a few minutes to thank you for our marriage. They say that you will know someone is “the one” when they make you a better version of yourself. While I’m pretty sure that our relationship was not exactly what they were referring too, I will admit, you did make me a better version of myself.

Since I wrote you a letter on the 2nd anniversary of your leaving and I shared with you all the things that I had learned since you had gone away, I wanted to take a minute to thank you for everything that you helped me realize about myself during our marriage. If it weren’t for you I wouldn’t be the person that I am today and I’m kinda starting to love the unlovable me.

It was our marriage that taught me who I want to be and what I want to do with my life.

You ripped everything I had away from me down to the dignity of the skin that I’m in. You left me with no choice but to look inside myself for any shred of self worth that I could find and to build myself back up into being a functioning member of society.

If it weren’t for our marriage, I wouldn’t be the amazing version of myself that I am today; built upon the lessons you taught me and what I taught myself in their aftermath.

You took a lot from me, you broke a lot, you hurt a lot, but because of me, I'm ok.

I guess though, as I am writing this letter, something is becoming apparent to me:

I guess I never really needed you, because my parents had already taught me all of that. You were just a detour that made everything a hell of a lot harder for me.

Dammit.

Anyways, happy “Never 10th Anniversary” baby and cheers to all the rest that we will thankfully never reach.

With all the love in the world,

                 The Girl Who Never Stopped Being Your Wife Even When You Failed to be Her Husband.

P.S. Thanks for the kids. They are pretty awesome and I’m keeping them.