Day 20: Text Messages

Although my husband first told me he was leaving me face-to-face, we didn't have much of a conversation. He said he was moving out, I said okay. He curled up on the couch and fell asleep, I stared at the book I had been reading and pretended to be focused on the words. Weeks later, he texted me from work to say that he was going to be gone within two weeks. He hadn't mentioned moving since his first declaration that he was leaving, and as far as I could tell nothing had changed. I was still waking up every morning to drive him to work. He was still spending endless hours at the gym every night.  I was cooking dinner and packing him a lunch every day. We were still sleeping side-by-side.  I was beginning to wonder whether or not I had imagined the conversation or if he had just forgotten about it completely. The text message was the first time he'd even alluded to his original plan, and by then I'd had enough of walking around, wondering if and when he was leaving and what exactly it meant for us. I responded to his text by asking outright if we were getting a divorce, if he was just taking a break, if there was any chance of reconciliation. What followed was an hour long conversation in which he unloaded all of the reasons why I had caused the breakdown of our relationship and how there was no hope that things would work. I responded with one word answers, occasionally adding that I was sorry he felt the way he did.

The things that he said to me in the conversation were devastating. Throughout our relationship he always had a way of placing blame on me, making me feel guilty when he had done something to upset me. Just before he told me he was leaving I had confronted him about lies I'd discovered while he was at work that day. In his text messages, he sited my lack of trust as one of the reasons why our relationship couldn't work. It had nothing to do with the fact that he broke my trust on numerous occasions, it was my fault. It took months for me to come to the realization that I was not completely to blame, that I hadn't single-handedly caused the collapse of our relationship by lacking trust, being overly-judgmental and the slew of other character flaws he indicated.

I would go back to the text messages frequently to re-read the conversation. At one point I even wrote down all of the things he'd said in an attempt to better myself, to fix these flawed characteristics that would render me single for the remainder of my lonely life. It took months of processing to realize that we were both to blame and that analyzing my every emotion, action, and reaction was not helping me to let go and move on.

Even though I haven't gone back to read the text messages for months, they've still been filling up my inbox, overloading the SIM card in my phone. Although I wasn't reading the texts, I was reminded of them every time I received an incoming text and my phone flashed the warning: Memory low: Delete messages to receive new texts. I would delete conversations with friends, being careful not to touch any from my ex.

For day 20, I deleted all of his texts, freeing space from my phone and my heart. I no longer have room in my life for the self-loathing, finger-pointing that once ruled my thoughts.