Letter to My Ex

I am amazed that we even speak at all now. Of course, it wasnt automatic - it took a while for you to call after we parted ways, and even longer for me to pick up. I honestly wasnt sure I cared to hear anything you had to say. After all, you had already said so much.

"You dont wanna let a man be a man." I didnt realize I had to "let" you - you either are, or youre not.

"You want to be the man in the relationship." No, I just want one who can be.

"Why you always gotta have an opinion?" So, I should just sit here and be pretty?

I make light of it now, but it was hurtful; being made into a person I knew I wasnt - a person YOU knew I wasnt - because you were feeling inadequate, as if the fault were mine. Screaming on me for picking up a case of water and loading it onto the shopping cart, as if that action had somehow served to immasculate you. "You got a MAN here with you, that's a MAN's job." Ok, but after having to ask you three times to grab it and having you act like I was trying to tell you what to do, I think it should be okay that I just grab it myself.

For a while, you almost had me going. For a while, I wondered if it was me.

Like many men, you were taught that the man is the head of the relationship and the woman should be submissive. Meanwhile, here I am, so "not" that, and there was nothing you could do about it, except try your hardest to break me down. I always found it interesting how your mommy issues motivated you more to try to tear me down, than to get out of her house, but I digress. Lesser women may have buckled under your verbal attacks, while I chose to just stare at you and wonder what would make a man so bold as to think a house, in which he paid nothing and did not live, required him to run it.

For the longest, I looked at the word "submissive" as a vulgarity - if nothing else, something foreign for which I had nor wanted any understanding. If this was what it meant to submit to a man, I didnt want any parts of it. But it wasnt me. It was you. YOU were doing it wrong.

To assume the driver's seat, one must be able to drive. You, sir, didnt even have a license - in neither the figurative nor literal sense LOL. See, it took for me to get with someone capable of leading for me to learn to follow, and it has nothing to do with an iron fist or condescending to anyone. Its a matter of trust, respect, and a shared vision, none of which you displayed during our shortlived tryst, hence the reason it was shortlived.

But I wish the best for every person I've decided to walk away from, and you were no different, so I forgave it and moved on. I wasnt the least bit surprised when the phone calls started coming; you wanting to see me.... come over.... work it out. Hmmpfh. Im good, bruh. But no hard feelings, because the truth is, amidst your well thought out but empty apologies, I kinda feel sorry for you. Delusional as you are, you have a lot of potential. Unfortunately, that's about all you've got. STILL. Three years later. At your mom's house. Waiting for a ride.

Yeah. Im good.