They don't call me and I don't care

How things have changed since my 20s. Admittedly, I suspect, there were more eligible males around, untested, but with potential. There were all these boys taking a science degree with me, not unattractive, intelligent. I fell in love so easily. To me men were a beautiful miasma to be tapped into. They were all so cute, sexy and desirable. Now I find them slightly frightening. They just want to talk me into bed with no strings (in truth this was probably also true in my 20s – but they were coming into the commitment phase, if only I’d waited, and I had more cards to play). Now they are more sinister. They have broken marriages, strange attitudes to sex and sexual practices, venereal diseases, nasty habits and poor attitudes to women. They are less attractive, to even get into bed with them would involve a severe choking on my bile and if after that they are going to screw me and leave me, why would I not just pick the youngest best looking one I could? At least the process would be enjoyable. I do get asked out a lot, but we rarely get passed the first date, and when they don’t call more often than not it is something akin to a relief. On the first date they nearly always ply me with alcohol and talk about sex. There’s no secret as to where its all going. Its just a matter of it I’m willing and if anything looks too hard to them, they don’t call. And I don’t care.

Letters (1)

Dear Simon
I am writing to forgive you (no well actually i can't forgive you, I am in fact writing to blame you for stealing my life, in the hope that by the end of the letter I will be able to forgive you)

Simon, I forgive you for altering the course of my life so utterly that I lost 20 years of my life with my precious family. I forgive you for holding so tightly onto the purse strings that we completely failed to get on the property ladder. I forgive you that even as you held those strings it was me that was earning the money. I forgive you for letting me support you as you went through graduate school and for showing no gratitude. I forgive you for emotionally abusing me for 15 years, and I forgive you for denying me the opportunity to have a large family of our own.
Simon I forgive you for casting your estrangement from your own family as a virtue "We don't live in each other's pockets" I forgive you for mocking my homesickness. I forgive you for not understanding just what my family meant to me. I forgive you for taking me to the other side of the world, and tying me down there.

Simon, I forgive you for that time you said we didn't have enough money for me to buy new shoes for a job interview, and for spending the money on yourself when I got the job regardless. I forgive you for baulking at all the perfectly good houses we could have afforded that now would be worth twice their value.

I forgive you for two years into our marriage telling me that if I got pregnant you would expect me to have an abortion. I forgive you for being so unready to commit to parenthood that by the time you were ready I was already almost too old. I forgive you for becoming resistant when I was trying to get pregnant. I forgive you for saying that "the best babies are born naturally" when I was (we were?) doing IVF. I forgive you for expecting me to go hiking in 30C when I was seven months pregnant. I forgive you for seeing my shaky pregnancy as a weakness. I forgive you for the time you went of climbing when I was losing a baby and let me take myself bleeding in taxi to the hospital. I forgive you for seeing my miscarriages as something you needed to control by curtailing your own fertility and ultimately curtailing the relationship. I forgive you for freezing me out and ignoring me when I was in pain over losing babies. I forgive you for then going and attempting to have children with other girls.

I forgive you for blaming connor's learning difficulties on the means and circumstances of my pregnancy when their source could just as well be your dyslexia. I forgive you for seeking to extract yourself from his life when he becomes behaviourally difficult.

I forgive myself for my naivety in thinking that love would find a way. I forgive myself for believing in marriage so utterly and blindly. I forgive myself for thinking I had to stick with it no matter what. I forgive myself for not standing up to you in so many ways. I forgive myself for letting you run my life. I forgive myself for squandering my hard earned money on you, as though you were my child. I forgive myself for not letting you be a man. I forgive myself for going ahead and having a baby because by that stage it meant more to me than you did. I acknowledge that in my drive to recreate my family of origin I pushed you away and created a situation in which I am for ever separated from them. I acknowledge the part I have taken in bringing my life to this stage.

Sincerely

Fiona