dear bad apple ...

I'd like to make this opportunity to not-thank you for the most un-enriching experience of my traumatic life. At least the psycho-ex who fathered my son (then stole him) had the gall to threaten me with death if I didn't acquiesce. You, on the other hand, preferred drip-feed, invasive humiliation and sheer temper to control me. Tame and train. I saw you work this on others, how could I have been so self-aggrandised to think I might effect you?

What I don't get is why you, or anyone, would want to control me in the first place? It's not like I'm a hugely demanding extravert character who takes, takes and takes. I'm gentle – no threat to even the most ravaged and ravaging of self-obsessed egos. Or so I thought. You, BA, are another example of my ability to find Mr. How Wrong Can I Be This Time.

Such is joy that while 3 years with you felt like a century of bitter indoctrination, I don't know if it’s 1 or 2 years since I seized the moment. Orchestrated your dumping me as safely as I could, on the back of a row you instigated. Of course I also paved the way for you to have the last word and rip me off. I so hoped that you'd be honourable; condescendingly righteous would have been understandable. Or even honest enough to say you were hurt and confused. You weren’t any of those. The vile child in you screamed vengeance. I was right, then, to reclaim freedom on what seemed like your terms. I had at least learned that much of you, from you. So enjoy the car. I’ll be picking up the pieces for a long time, as you know and relish, but they’re MY pieces.

Like Christmas tree needles that lurk in carpets for ages, occasionally stabbing paws and toes, your presence in my life started off promising "different" but became predatorial, mind-twisting attack. Your intelligence and humour "did it" for me in the early days. A conventional relationship's never been appealing and the nature of ours meant it was anything but that. Once I knew your inner plan, though, I became complicit in what can only be described as a toxic take-over.

Your tantrums, whenever I didn't see things your way, were spectacular. Increasingly vindictive and heartbreakingly dark. I saw your cruel needles tumble to my floor, stepped on them anyway. Shame on me. In the light of today (and most of last night when I couldn't sleep, knowing that what I'd originally written here belittled me) I was close to the core of it in first words. Yours was indeed a ravaged and ravaging ego. I was wrong about my not being a threat. You fought to keep what was yours and I was a rebellious acquisition. In some perverse way perhaps that makes you truer to yourself than I. The cosmic error of thinking you would, could, should change makes me disgustingly the same as you. So here I am, taking responsibility - not for your actions, for mine. I apologise wholeheartedly to you. I should have got out before I got in. I should have known better.

Sincerely not yours,

Me.

Theme song for this life: Anastacia's "sick and tired" though I prefer to call it "my love is on the line"

Thought for the day found on Blue Witch's blog: "circumstances do not make the man, they reveal him" (James Allen)

*images: Luis Royo