Originally Posted On Facebook May 3, 2022
I recently found out my ex-father-in-law passed away. I was immediately stricken with grief because no matter what happened between me and my ex-husband I always felt grateful for his parents. They were and still are my biggest loss from my divorce. It still baffles me how two of the greatest humans to ever exist produced him.
I was conflicted if I should reach out as it’s been over ten years, but this was a family I used to be a part of. I wasn’t sure what kind of reception my message would receive, but this wasn’t about me.
I first texted my ex-husband as his phone number is one digit off from my own. It’s hard to NOT remember. Then I sent his brother a private message on Facebook.
That was when I came across the very last message his brother ever sent me (pictures below) and it opened up an old wound. An old wound I needed to process with family and friends afterwards. People who were in my life at the time. People who knew the truth of it.
A year before my ex-husband and I got together he took advantage of me while I was intoxicated. So intoxicated I couldn’t stand up straight. My friends trusted him to get me safely to my room. The next morning I woke up alone, naked, sore, and found a used condom in the trash.
My friends had to tell me this was rape. You can’t consent to sex while you’re blacked out. It wasn’t my fault that I had flirted with him that night, what he did was wrong.
Why did I end up dating him and eventually marrying him? Because I thought this was what love was. I thought this was the best it ever got. I believed he was a good man that made one horrible mistake. I was wrong.
He became very neglectful and emotionally abusive. Something all the people in my life witnessed first hand and warned me to get away from. But I loved him, so I stayed.
He told me he had saved $20,000 to put towards a new home. After we had the home built it turned out he didn’t have the money and my parents took care of it. Money he said he would pay them back for and never did.
He refused to touch me throughout nearly our entire marriage. This went beyond sex. He didn’t want to hold my hand, kiss me, or even hug me. When I tried to kiss or hug him I was forcefully pushed away. He would put on a show for his family, but my friends and family knew the truth.
So after years of begging him to go into marriage therapy with me or individual therapy for himself (as I was in therapy for myself), ignoring me for internet porn/pot smoking with his friends/football/poker, and emotionally neglecting me I had an affair. Prior to the affair I told him on several ocassions I was unhappy and wanted to end the marriage. He cried as he made false promises he would do better, but never did. I ended this brief affair to go back to a man that didn’t want me. He told me he would keep the affair a secret as long as I never did anything like it again. He held it over me anytime I mis-stepped in any way as a veiled threat. As soon as we agreed to divorce he immediately ran off to tell his family about the affair. I imagine the narrative was that this was the reason for the divorce.
Who took care of the majority of our house chores? I did. Who contributed at least equally financially if not more? I did. He hoarded our shared money refusing to pay our bills until we got final notices. When I asked to look at our finances to see what was going on, he wouldn’t let me. People told me this was shady, but I trusted him.
My brother had started a lucrative business and took a chance hiring my ex-husband. It was a horrible experience where my ex refused to do any of the work. My brother had to do his work responsibilities for him until eventually my brother was put in the very awkward position of letting my ex go or continuing to allow his business to suffer.
As soon as I was finally able to break free from this abusive cycle I put myself out there with other men. My ex-husband raced to start entire romances with other women. He bought them flowers, took them on dates, and was sexual with them. That’s when he admitted I was the problem, he wasn’t longer attracted to me and that’s why he had stopped any form of affection yet was excited about it with other women. Women who were not his wife.
So it’s okay that my ex did it, but not me. Just like it’s okay that another family member of my ex’s family had a public affair, because how do you buy a house with a woman who isn’t your wife in the same town if you’re trying to be discreet, was never slut shamed for his adulterous behavior. (People that had never met my ex’s family were telling me about it.) So if I’m a giant slut, then I imagine they are too? Maybe the difference is that I’m a woman? Maybe the difference is that I was villianized by the family and that they weren’t?
The narrative that my ex-husband told people about me was never true. My family and friends witnessed everything I just shared. When I showed them the message that my ex-brother-in-law wrote me they were appalled. And they all knew about my affair too because unlike my husband I was honest about my wrong-doings.
It took me 12 years to the write this because I was trying to protect my ex and his family at the cost of myself. Because for years I actually believed what my ex-brother-in-law wrote about me. 12 years of various therapists helping me work through what a horrible person I thought I was to deserve all these things. Believing that I would never find someone who would love and accept me because the one person that vowed to possibly never did.
So no, I’m not going to keep my personal life personal in order to protect my ex’s family name especially when my ex-husband didn’t do that for my family name. I’m not going to be shamed into being silent because then I’ll never heal. I deserve the chance to heal.
Me sharing the truth of what my ex-husband did should make his friends and family upset, but not because I shared it. They should be upset because someone they trust and love did horrible things. Horrible things MANY people witnessed. I don’t have to do anything to tarnish my ex-husband’s family name because he can do that all by himself.
My ex-brother-in-law shouldn’t be ashamamed that he knew me. He should be ashamed that he’s related to someone that treated his wife AND her entire family so horribly. A family who supported him through his cancer scare. A family he scammed out of $20,000. A family that offered him an amazing employment opportunity at the detriment of that business. A wife who sacrificed her own mental and physical health in order to save a marriage that was breaking her.
I do advocacy now and the power behind it is in stating my unfiltered truth. My truth has helped others heal in their own trauma. And hopefully this truth of mine will help others to know it isn’t their fault either no matter how much someone tries to convince them it is. Don’t be silent to make the lives of those who hurt you easier at the cost of making yours worse.
And I’m fully prepared that my ex’s family and friends will attack me for this. They’ll say it’s all lies. They’ll victim blame me. They’ll continue to slut shame me. They may even throw in ugly comments about my mental health. My ex is also the reason we didn’t have an amicable divorce with a mediator as I initially suggested. He refused to let me end the marriage until I legally served him papers. Hence the Facebook post that preceded