Seymore

Staying out of the house today to keep myself from drinking. I remember every morning I used to write you a silly little poem on a post it and leave it for you to find when you left for work. I did that until you ran out of post its. You took it for granted. My goal is to stop caring and stop hating you.

Tonight I just remembered the night that I went to bed at midnight, then woke up at 2:30 wondering where you were. Went to the bathroom and found you drunk and passed out on the floor. And your kids were sleeping right next door as I had to physically lift you, and just about almost raise my voice at you to get to bed, careful not to wake them. I sit here praying that they realize that you were just too difficult for me, and that I didn't want to leave THEM.

A lot of Limp Bizkit. I know they're corny. I loved them when I was just starting college, but after my most recent breakup, ironically they speak to me even more now.

Even though I've blocked you on my Facebook, I came across you on my work's Facebook page tonight and slipped and looked at your profile picture. You have a half smile on your face but I can see the hurt in your eyes. Thankfully I'm very tipsy tonight so I was able to separate myself from much of the emotion it would have normally brought me. Part of me feels good that you are suffering. It means you recognize what you lost. Recognize - not realize. If you'd realized it you would have gotten help. I highly doubt that's happened. I'm so sorry I had to hurt you, but I know you haven't changed. And I still believe I'm hurting even more than you are.

I came across some photos of you that I thought I had deleted. I guess I backed them up and didn't think about that. I admit I was weak and looked at them. You are beautiful, always were. But those photos are now gone. I also had a dream of you last night. I had another dream afterwards, having nothing to do with you. I focused on THAT dream and forgot what I dreamt about regarding you. I ALSO finally went for a walk to explore the park my city built kitty corner from me last year. At first I imagined both of us walking through it, hand in hand. Then I thought: "This is MINE. This is MY new place." Needless to say, I made some progress today. I still love and miss you, but I know the reality is that you won't change. Maybe in ten years we'll cross paths again.

I'm not sure, but it looks like your son and his girlfriend split - for some reason she was one of the stragglers still on my friend list (I've made sure to clear them all now), and she's with a new guy. Your son never liked any of her photos from the last month or so, so I'm assuming they've split. I know how crazy he was about her, although she never deserved him. I wish I could have been there to console him and be there for him to vent and talk. We both have that in common - that we had women that never seemed to appreciate us, and took us for granted. His heart is so fragile, and I wish I could have been there for him. And I know you wished I was there to console him, since I know you'd have no clue what to say.

I remember I would cook you a vegetarian meal once a week, even though I wasn't vegeterian. Well tonight I finally showed myself love and cooked for ME for once. I feel such anger towards you. Such resentment. Your best friend told me the other day that you were suffering. I hope you suffer the rest of your days realizing that you lost me. I know that's a terrible way to think, but for now I do. You only cared about yourself. Sure, you'd bring me meds at work when I was sick, or the occasional breakfast at work, but those are things. Where it mattered you didn't care. I warned you. So many times I warned you. And now I'm gone. I hope you never forget what you could have had if you listened to me from the very start. And I'm sure you'll screw it up again and again.

Quit getting your friends, my friends, your family and my family to pity you. I should have left you a long time ago. I'm sorry you're suffering but at the same time you had it coming. You cheated on your ex, you *MAY* have cheated on me - this is what happens. You are not relationship material and you won't be until you get your life straight. Your poor kids. I noticed your son's girlfriend has a new boyfriend. I guess she dumped your son. That's a shame, he's a good kid and I always said she was trash, but you wouldn't listen. Maybe you could relate to her. Maybe that's why you're miserable. You always sent me to have talks with him over his relationship problems, then called me his stepdad. While I'd be happy to have a kid like him, you brainwashed your kids into thinking I was their stepdad when we weren't even married, then used that against me when I left. Maybe you can't handle his grief and wish I was there to talk him down. Get your crap together, for your kids' sake. Their father is enough of a deadbeat, they don't need a mom like that too.

As I sat outside grilling my dinner, I thought about how I couldn't trust you. You cheated on your ex with not only me, but 3-4 people in the years before that. I appreciated the honesty, but still...and despite me putting up a fight not to date until the divorce was final, I bought your excuses as to why it was ok for me and you to get together. And I never got past that mistrust. And you gave me plenty of other reasons during our time together to not trust you. Times you'd be out at the bar or some work function and go hours without responding to my one simple text asking if you're doing ok, all the times your "phone was dead" - and you couldn't plug it into your car and let me know? And YOU would accuse ME of flirting with someone?!? I never even LOOKED at another woman, let alone spoke in a manner to them that could be misconstrued as flirting - not in the least. I was true-blue YOURS and I showed it. You, on the other hand, were a flat-out liar. There were at LEAST 3 BIG issues and that was one of them - trust, or lack of. I'm seeing a bit of light finally, and thinking of you a bit less. I'm still a wreck and for some reason I really want answers about certain situations where you "lied by omission", yet when I found out and confronted you, you claimed that wasn't lying. But I know and accept that I'll never get those answers. I am a good person. Maybe not perfect, but I try pretty darn hard. I value my relationships. If you find another guy like me, he won't tolerate that behavior for long, either - you will break him eventually. I'm willing to bet, however, that your nature will net you someone who will treat you like a queen to your face and like crap behind your back. I hope for that. And I hope that every day you realize what you lost in me. But one day, I hope to get to the point where I no longer even care.

Friday will be your youngest's birthday. I hope he has a great one. I wonder if this weekend you'll be in WI visiting your other son's girlfriend for the convention. Still thinking of you.

I'm still not sorry I left you, but that doesn't mean I don't think of you. I think of you every free minute I get. Sometimes I get caught up at work thinking of you and zone out. I'm a manager now - so that's not really ok for me to be doing. I can't tell you the good news about my new job because I'm so close to your home every day and I'm scared you'll show up. I hope your son and his girlfriend are getting along ok. I remember talking with you about how she doesn't treat him well, and you said you hate how nasty she is to him, yet often you treated me worse than she treated him. He deserves a good girl. All three of your boys deserve good girls - although I agree with you, T might be gay. So he deserves SOMEONE who loves him as much as he has to give. That's one thing I give you major credit for - you raised three wonderful boys. I miss them. And sometimes I miss you. Someone once asked me "Then why don't you take her back?" - well, I missed cigarettes for the first 3 months after I quit, doesn't mean they were good for me. Tonight I was playing a game that just came out - I know your boys are playing it too, and I spent the last couple of hours playing while imagining their commentary. I'm getting my head back on straight. I'm a little tipsy right now, so maybe I'm not coping in the proper way, but this is my outlet for now. I could never fully trust you, and I hate you less, which is probably a good thing, but I still really resent you for pushing me into something that could have been MUCH better and stable had we done it my way. But you never listened to me. I'm still so sorry I broke you and your boys' hearts, and I can only hope you understand the "why" someday. Good night, C, T, B and C. I'm still thinking of you all, so very fondly.

I'm sure you're telling people I just up and left you and your kids, that I'm heartless because I went NC. I'm positive you're painting yourself as the victim and claiming no responsibility. I bet you're at one of our mutual friend's birthday party tonight. And I'm sure you're drinking. What I did was out of love, and you'll never understand that. I gave you a clean slate. You never have to worry about impressing someone's dad. You don't have to worry about your SO having any guilt because you pushed him to help you cheat. You'll never get how difficult it was for me to leave, or how many nights I'VE had to drink myself to sleep post breakup just to forget what went on between us. Please don't screw it up the next time around. At the very least for your kids. I hate the thought of you enjoying life with anyone but me, but this is how the universe has made things for us. I hope someday that you realize the "why" of why I left you. I don't have much faith that you ever will, but I have to live with that. Best of luck to you, C. You'll always be special to me.

I keep thinking about our snuggles in bed. God, I miss that. I could fall asleep in less than a minute the way we fit together. I would have these bursts of happiness and content while I was wrapped around you. And I wouldn't let go until we awoke. You loved that and so did I. But then I think of all the times you wouldn't let me sleep because you were drunk or angry or both, and threw my father's disapproval of you in my face among other insults, often until 2 AM, AND I'd have to get up early in the morning, miserable from arguing and begging you to let me sleep the night before, often times literally barricading me in and not allowing me to leave to go home and sleep, when all I wanted was to snuggle and be peaceful with each other. You HAD to fight. You had to fight at the wee hours of the morning. The happiness and content was dwindling. Why was it not enough for you that I loved you? Why did you let so many things get in the way? I was there and I wasn't gong anywhere. But you HAD to have my dad's approval, no matter how I felt. Why were you so obsessed with him? Why did you have to drink so much? We had such a good thing. I wish you would have gotten help, and I wish I would have put my foot down and not allowed us to get involved while you were married. You...we destroyed what could have been great.

Not that I'm thinking of contacting you - what I did was for the best for both of us - but I just need to get things off of my mind and into something relatively tangible. I never knew anyone who loved Halloween as much as me, until I met you. We had the best outfits and did so much decorating and preparation the last two years come this time. Now I'm in my condo, with one lone decoration hanging on my door, hoping the kids in the building will ring my doorbell so I can give out at least one piece of candy. I don't think it's going to happen. Halloween is a bust this year. It's not over and I'm still hanging on to faith that somehow it'll feel like Halloween this year, but it's rainy and gloomy and just...not Halloween. I know you didn't put your decorations up, either. A coworker told me. This year we could have turned heads, laughed and enjoyed ourselves. But we're over. I hate you for it. I hate that you put my father's (non) acceptance of you over the fact that I was STILL there with you. I hate that your drinking caused so many more problems than it was worth. I knew I would never have a PERFECT relationship with you, but we worked so well, when we worked. But you just wouldn't grow up. You wouldn't see what was right in front of you and just couldn't help pulling us apart, strand by strand. I hate that I had to walk out on you and your kids after warning you for so long. I hate that I have to endure your friends' insults because I left. I can't fire back and tell them WHY. I can't tell them all of the things you did. I'm not that low. I hate that I've lost friends and have to stay away from them because they're close to you, too - and I can't be anywhere near you, for both of our sakes. I hate that I had to break it off clean and give the appearance that I just lost my heart and soul and quit caring. There are days where I wish I were never born. Blocking your number, your Facebook, your e-mail...none of those things were done without me wanting to cry so hard. And you'll never get it. You and your kids will always think of me as the heartless bastard who just took off. And you'll paint me as a jerk from here on out, never explaining how many chances I DID in fact give you. And I have to live with that. I remember one day, a few months into the beginning, while you were still married and hadn't filed for divorce yet. You wanted to do something that made me uncomfortable - I can't even remember what - you pushed me into so many things...I remember having a drink at a bar with you, and you trying to push me into something. I said to you: "This is going to come apart someday. You want to push things until they break." I was so right. I had a feeling it would happen, but hoped that it wouldn't. But I'm the bad guy. I'm the jerk. I'm every nasty adjective you could think of, and I always will be. All I did was love you. I need to set boundaries with people from now on. I need to not allow behavior out of fear of the other person leaving. I shouldn't have let it get this far. Anyway, Happy Halloween. For some reason I still think fondly of you. And that's scary. HA! Sense of humor is coming back.

I wish you'd leave me alone and move on. You sent me photos of flowers you got, asking if they were from me. I replied no, and you asked if we could meet for coffee. Still a sneak, as always. Now I can't focus at work. Leave me the heck alone.

You sent me a video I thought I'd like, via text, tonight. It didn't amuse me, which showed me how much you THOUGHT you knew about me. I wish you'd forget you knew me, so I could forget I knew you.

What every BODY is saying, by Joe Navarro.

Catcher In The Rye. This book kills me. It really does. Godd** book just about knocks me out. I mean it.

A Clockwork Orange. Oddly enough, I'm the only person I know who can understand the language without a glossary.

I'm not saying don't do it, but be aware of the outcomes should you roll the dice, and it is a dice roll. One of the managers at my work met his wife here and they just had their 20 year anniversary 2 days ago.

Haven't read the other replies but from personal experience and seeing it at my workplace: 1. If it doesn't work out, it'll be tough to treat that person the way you're supposed to at work: As a coworker. 2. If you're dating that person and another co-worker starts hitting on him/her, you'll have to try extra hard not to get into a personal conflict with that co-worker. Last week I had to talk some sense into a guy I work with because the co-worker he's dating is getting hit on by another guy we work with. Guy A wants to kill Guy B now.

i'm on a Bret Easton Ellis kick. Just finished 'Less Than Zero", just started The Informers".

Nope. It's the opposite, I believe. The nice guys usually ALLOW the behavior to happen. Which guys are the ones telling their girlfriends what they can and can't do? The nice guys or the bad guys? If a nice guy allows his girlfriend to get away with stuff, he's enabling. If he puts his foot down, he's controlling. If he chooses to walk away from the relationship, he's a quitter. I don't get it?

I'm a nice guy who winds up with nutty girls. I know the problem isn't me looking for that type of person because they come to me as well. I think that before my ex, over the course of 1 year three of them (whom I also worked with) asked me out. All emotionally unstable, and oddly enough now that I think about it, all single moms. The ones that I chased and dated - well, I could see the signs early on, but I stuck with them. I DIDN'T think "this isn't going to work in the end anyway" or anything like that, but while my gut was saying "there's trouble here", I stuck with it. Why? Not 100% sure. I want to say it was a mix between the "knight in shining armor" syndrome and genuinely wanting to WORK on things instead of running away at the first sign of trouble. I guess it was like saying "I chased this person, and I wanted a relationship with them. Now it's my job to devote myself to it". Well, if the other person isn't devoted to it, it's tough to maintain. But I'd still give it every last drop I had to the point where the stress was keeping me up every night and unable to eat. I learned that not sleeping or eating is not something that should be happening, but I'm still going to give it my all. Any girl who's ever dated me cannot deny that I am 100% being the best boyfriend I can possibly be - this I'm confident of, and when I leave a relationship, I KNOW I gave it my all. But I need to know my limits a little better.